A Sputnik Moment

October 4, 1957, 10:29 p.m.  A rocket lifts off a secret launch pad and hurries into the night sky above Tyura-Tam, a small settlement of cattle herders in present-day Kazakhstan.  Thirty-four feet tall, its payload is a metal sphere just 22 inches in diameter, weighing 184 pound.  The Soviets call it "Prosteyshiy Sputnik 1" --...