rabid_fan wrote in newsan.2010.06.02.01.47.09
@righthere.net:

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.




Of course Sputnik was primitive. But it got into
orbit, something it took the US over a year to imitate.

The plus side was it kick-started US educational
standards and ushered in the priority of math and
science education that served NASA well in the
following decades.