On Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:28:06 -0500, Mitchell Holman wrote:


Of course, for a whole year after Sputnik the
US orbital rockets kept blowing up on the launch pad, showing just how
"able" the US was..........

Dubbed by the popular press the Stayputnik ...

But when the US finally did achieve orbit, the first satellites
contained sophisticated payloads that delivered useful scientific
knowledge. Compare that to the Sputnik payload which was only
a cheap radio transmitter intended to dazzle the ignorant masses
with its incessant (and useless) "bleeping." That was a measure
of the Soviet state of the art.