Dave Majumdar
While Sputnik itself was a rudimentary satellite that was by no means a weapon, it represented an uncomfortable truth—that the Soviet Union could reach out and potentially threaten the American homeland.
While the situations are not identical, the current standoff between the United States and North Korea bears some resemblance to the early days of the Cold War. Indeed, the current crisis—which was sparked by North Korea test launching an ICBM—bears some resemblance to the developments of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the United States assumed that it would be the world’s economic and technologically dominant power—which it was. However, that confidence was shaken on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite—Sputnik—into orbit.
“Sputnik lofted over American skies, not only shocking the American public but also representing a capability few Americans wished to believe the Soviet Union possessed,” former U.S. Air Force missile officer and historian Steven Pomeroy wrote in his Auburn University PhD dissertation in 2006
While Sputnik itself was a rudimentary satellite that was by no means a weapon, it represented an uncomfortable truth—that the Soviet Union could reach out and potentially threaten the American homeland.
“There was a difference between orbiting Sputnik and accurately delivering a nuclear weapon to a target via an ICBM, but such subtleties were lost in the hubbub surrounding the headlines,” Pomeroy wrote.
“The perception was that not only had the Soviets kept pace with American science and technology, they had demonstrated superiority, and because they had fission and fusion weaponry, they could launch nuclear-armed missiles at American soil.
As Pomeroy noted, while the technology is similar to that of an ICBM, a space launch vehicle does not have many of the necessary components of a military nuclear delivery vehicle. What is correct, however, is that Sputnik represented real Soviet technological progress towards developing an ICBM capability.
That is what the July 28 North Korean ICBM test represents too, progress towards an operational intercontinental nuclear delivery vehicle. The North Korean ICBM is not likely an operational weapon—no more so than Sputnik was in 1957 or the Soviet Union’s launch of the world's first ICBM, the R-7, on Aug. 21, 1958.
Like the R-7, the North Korean missile was a test vehicle that could eventually result in an operational weapon. As was the case with the R-7, the North Korean ICBM also lacked a fully developed reentry vehicle, but it was enough to demonstrate that the missile works.
“The R-7 was as complicated and unwieldy as early American ICBMs, requiring thirty-two engines to ignite at liftoff, but it flew fifteen months before the Atlas successfully flew 2,500 miles on December 17, 1958,” Pomeroy wrote.“The R-7 test was not a complete success because upon reentry, the dummy warhead disintegrated at an altitude of ten kilometers, but the Soviets had not yet completed the re-entry vehicle design, and in any event, it was enough to show that the rocket worked.”
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/60-years-ago-russia-launched-sputnik-it-can-teach-us-lot-22595
