October 4, 2007, marks precisely 50 years since the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object to achieve earth orbit.

October 4, 2007, marks precisely 50 years since the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object to achieve earth orbit. The staticky beepings of Sputnik (technically, Sputnik 1--there were 40 subsequent Sputniki) fell upon American ears like thunderclaps, triggering a crisis of national self-confidence. The Space Race was under way. NASA was created; so was DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which later brought forth the Internet); so were New Math, the arts of modern Systems Analysis and Project Management, and many other now-familiar features of the pedagogic, technological, political, military, and managerial landscapes. America's first attempt to emulate the Sputnik launch, recorded for a national TV audience in December 1957, rose four feet into the air before exploding. This failure inspired John F. Kennedy's talk of a "missile gap" and helped propel Kennedy to the White House. A simple two-foot sphere of polished aluminum weighing 184 pounds, Sputnik was the most striking achievement of the Soviet command economy, fortifying the ideas of those like John Kenneth Galbraith, who believed that the economic potentials of capitalism and Communism, suitably managed, might be convergent. Much has happened this 50 years; much has been learned.