Today, October 4, is 60th anniversary of launch of Sputnik 1, first artificial satellite
Fact is USA had means to launch satellite using Jupiter C a year before Sputnik
Von Braun and his Army Ballistic Missile Agency team were prevented from doing so by bureaucratic politics which considered Jupiter C "tainted" by
being based on military missile, the Nazi past of some of German rocket engineers
Engineers considered Jupiter C a "kludge" - an inelegant lash-up of a modified Redstone with a group of solid fuel rockets derived from Sergeant tactical missile
US decided to go with Vanguard - totally new untested configuration which was supposedly pure civilian project . Vanguard repeatedly failed - first
attempted launch was spectacular failure in Dec 1957 blowing up on pad
A second attempt had to be aborted because of corrosive oxidizer leak from
2 nd stage
It was the Jupiter C which succeeded on Jan 31 1958 putting Explorer 1 in orbit
Moral is that sometimes cheap and nasty works ......
Fact is USA had means to launch satellite using Jupiter C a year before Sputnik
Von Braun and his Army Ballistic Missile Agency team were prevented from doing so by bureaucratic politics which considered Jupiter C "tainted" by
being based on military missile, the Nazi past of some of German rocket engineers
Engineers considered Jupiter C a "kludge" - an inelegant lash-up of a modified Redstone with a group of solid fuel rockets derived from Sergeant tactical missile
US decided to go with Vanguard - totally new untested configuration which was supposedly pure civilian project . Vanguard repeatedly failed - first
attempted launch was spectacular failure in Dec 1957 blowing up on pad
A second attempt had to be aborted because of corrosive oxidizer leak from
2 nd stage
It was the Jupiter C which succeeded on Jan 31 1958 putting Explorer 1 in orbit
Moral is that sometimes cheap and nasty works ......
