what were the long-term effects of sputnik? think in terms of politics, education, science, life style?

Question

and technology

Answer 1

A great example of the effect Would be to look at Ford's Edsel. That car was going to be huge. It had bells and whistles people didn't need but were going to want. America was proud and brash and this car was going to symbolize that.

Then came Sputnik. America had a huge inferiority complex at that point. They had to look inward and see what was happening. They realized that the World War II generation had been spoiling the baby-boomers and as a result, America was in danger of falling behind.

So America decided to retool and rework education especially. They started getting rid of the feel good classes and headed back to the basics - reading, writing and arithmetic, with science thrown in for good measure.

As far as life style was concerned, they got back to the basics there as well. The Edsel died a quick death. America saw that much was going to waste and that had to end. Of course, this is cyclical. This was not a permanent change.

In politics, they followed education. It was time to make a concerted effort to where the US needed to be to beat the Russians. Other plans fell by the wayside. The push was on for science and seriousness.

Answer 2

Sputnik restored Soviet prestige after the 1956 embarrassment in Hungary, shook European confidence in the U.S. nuclear deterrent, magnified the militancy of Maoist China, and provoked an orgy of self-doubt in the United States itself. The two Sputnik satellites of 1957 were themselves of little military significance, and the test missile that launched them was too primitive for military deployment, but Khrushchev claimed that long-range missiles were rolling off the assembly line "like sausages," a bluff that allowed President Eisenhower's opponents--and nervous Europeans--to perceive a "missile gap." Khrushchev in turn tried to capitalize on the apparent gap in a series of crises, but his adventurous policy only provoked perverse reactions in China, the United States, and Europe that undermined his own political support at home.

Answer 3

No. The government will not sponsor any testing using street grade cannabis. All tests must be aimed at finding a negative answer for virtually any question. Many in the FDA thought by admitting cannabis causes "the munchies" it would deter people from using it for fear of gaining weight. Most experiments are set up poorly and are rarely repeated since the government is not interested in the science behind cannabis. Even knowing tobacco will kill you did not stop the government from hiding the results of tests. Smoking probably isn't good for you out of common sense. I wouldn't believe that eating prepared cannabis would be any more harm than 80% of food supplements.

Answer 4

The Soyuz Rocket. What shocked the US military community was not so much Sputnik, but the fact that the Soviets had a rocket powerful enough not only to launch a satellite, but was capable of launching heavy equipment with the Soyuz Rocket, meaning that they could bomb us with this ICBM Soyuz. We didn't have anything close to that till the 60's.

Answer 5

"Because of its military and economic implications, Sputnik caused fear and stirred political debate in the United States, spurring the Eisenhower administration to enact several initiatives, including the formation of NASA. At the same time, the Sputnik launch was seen in the Soviet Union as an important sign of scientific and engineering capabilities of the nation."

...

"Before Sputnik, the average American assumed that the U.S. had superiority in all fields of technology." ... "In response to Sputnik, the U.S. would launch a huge effort to regain technological supremacy, including revamping the school curricula." ... "Within less than a year, Congress passed, and President Eisenhower signed, the National Defense Education Act, the most far-reaching federally-sponsored education initiative in the nation's history. The bill authorized expenditures of more than $1 billion for a wide range of reforms including new school construction, fellowships and loans to encourage promising students to seek higher education, new efforts in vocational education to meet critical manpower shortages in the defense industry, and a host of other programs. This reaction is nowadays known as the Sputnik crisis."

"Sputnik", in "Space Race" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race#Sputnik

See also :

"Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age", NASA : http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/

"SPUTNIK REVISITED: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE REFORM", Peter Dow (Buffalo Museum of Science), National Academy of Sciences : http://www.nas.edu/sputnik/dow1.htm

Answer 6

It forced America to look that maybe it wasn;t as invincible as it had thought.

How could a backwater country (Russia) launch a satellite?

It got the nation focused in a non-war direction and forced us to realize we weren't as isolated as we once imagined

Answer 7

My GOD... I could write a BOOK just answering this question.

I think the main effect is/was, it marked the beginning of the end of AmeriKa the Imperialistic Country...