Get Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World PDF

In a severe chilly conflict second, Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency unexpectedly replaced while the Soviet Union introduced Sputnik, the world's first satellite tv for pc. What Ike referred to as "a small ball" grew to become a resource of Russian satisfaction and propaganda, and it wounded him politically, as critics charged that he spoke back sluggishly to the problem of house exploration. but Eisenhower refused to panic after Sputnik-and he did greater than simply remain calm. He helped to lead the USA into the gap Age, even supposing americans have given higher credits to John F. Kennedy for that achievement.

In Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment, Yanek Mieczkowski examines the early heritage of America's area software, reassessing Eisenhower's management. He information how Eisenhower licensed leap forward satellites, supported a brand new civilian area organisation, signed a landmark technological know-how schooling legislation, and fostered stronger family members with scientists. those feats made Eisenhower's post-Sputnik years no longer the flop that critics alleged yet a time of exceptional growth, while he continued the setbacks of recession, scientific affliction, and a humiliating first U.S. try to release a satellite tv for pc. Eisenhower's principled stands enabled him to withstand extreme strain to spice up federal spending, and he as an alternative pursued his priorities-a balanced finances, wealthy economic climate, and durable nationwide security. but Sputnik additionally altered the world's strength dynamics, sweeping Eisenhower in instructions that have been new, even alien, to him, and he misjudged the significance of house within the chilly War's "prestige race." in contrast, Kennedy capitalized at the factor within the 1960 election, and after taking place of work he instructed a manned project to the moon, leaving Eisenhower to grouse over the younger president's competitive approach.

Offering a fast moving account of this chilly warfare episode, Mieczkowski demonstrates that Eisenhower outfitted a magnificent list in house and in the world, the entire whereas supplying warnings approximately America's stature and strengths that also carry actual today.