>> Once in a great while in the history of a
nation, there comes a moment when a change occurs
that affects everyone.
At a moment like this, people know that
something fundamental has shifted; that
forevermore their lives will be divided into what
came before it and all that will follow after it.
The film you are about to see tells a story of
one of these moments that took place in America
roughly 50 years ago.
>> Johnny is my given name.
America is my nation.
The schoolhouse is my learning place ...
>> The Sputnik moment.
It was October 4, 1957, a Friday evening.
For most Americans, life was, as they said at
the time, normal.
Just about everyone has been following the
world series, where the legendary New York Yankees
were facing the upstart Milwaukee Braves.
Also this evening, millions of families were
gathering to watch the premier of a new TV show.
7,000 miles away, in deepest secrecy, engineers
working for our archenemy, Soviet Russia, were
putting the final preparations on a rocket that
would carry a 23 inch aluminum sphere, polished so
that it would shine like a star.
Although no one knew it yet, what these
scientists and engineers were about to do would
change America and the world forever.
>> Moments of farewell.
Our space rocket is ready in the center of the
cosmotry.
The countdown begins.
Now only a few moments remain.
The mighty roar, our rocket vibrates.
White hot flame gushes downward, and the great
beast lifts slowly from the Earth.
We are about to create a new planet that we
will call Sputnik.
>> The first artificial Earth satellite in the
world has been created.
>> We are bringing to you the most important
story of this century, mankind's breakthrough into
space.
>> In about 24 minutes it will be over
Santiago, Chile, and about 50 minutes from now,
will be over Spain.
>> The entire neighborhood, the entire city --
in fact, the entire nation it seemed was standing
outside watching what the Russians had done.
>> What did you say when you saw Sputnik one?
>> I shouted to Mr. Robert Brown: I think I
have it.
>> Scanning the horizon while the world watches
the flight of the ...
>> Right at the appointed hour, Sputnik flew
over. And I tell you what, if God himself in a
chariot had flown over, I would not have been more
impressed.
>> A tiny voice is heard from the vastness of
space, lonely and mysterious cry that separates
the old from the new.
>> Every man was out there in his backyard
watching history change; not at a great battle or
not at a great revolution, but in fact a little
blip in the sky.
>> Sputnik was the first man-made thing that
ever floated above our heads in outer space. It
didn't do anything but send out innocent radio
beeps, but Sputnik was Earth shattering.
Not only because it was the first man made
thing in space, but because of the rocket that got
it there and what that rocket meant.
>> The Soviets say the kind of rockets which
had taken Sputnik up could also carry nuclear
weapons in space.
They were using Sputnik to try to scare the
United States, to scare Americans into the idea
that we were all in danger of Soviet nuclear
weapon coming from space.
>> The United States is in a state of confusion
and surprise.
>> Sputnik was the 9/11 of our day.
>> America said: Now wait a minute.
What are they doing putting a Sputnik, a
satellite into orbit?
>> We were convinced, as Americans, that we
were the dominant power in the world; we had to
be.
So the idea that our archenemy, the evil Soviet
empire, could beat us by getting into space first
was just devastating.
People were walking around saying, how could
this happen?
The U.S. is number one.
What is this?
>> This is the Soviet Union's first man-made
Earth satellite, on display at the USSR industrial
exhibition in Moscow.
>> Ever since news of Sputnik flashed around
the world, America has been asking questions.
What went wrong?
How did a nation of backward peasants forge so
dramatically ahead of us in the race to space?
>> Because the American people are alarmed that
a foreign country, especially an enemy country,
can do this.
We fear this.
We fear that they have something out there that
the majority of the people don't know about.
>> Senator Jackson of Washington describes the
Russian achievement as a devastating below to the
prestige of the United States.
>> The people of the United States have been
humiliated, they are disturbed, and they are
unhappy.
An enemy of ours has outdistanced us.
>> Russia's getting into space really bothers
me.
>> We are headed downhill to the status of a
second rate world power.
>> Night after night, politicians and other
leaders were telling Americans that Sputnik
revealed that we were at great risk.
>> Not just our pride, but our security is at
stake.
>> We surely don't want to become hysterical,
but let's become factual. Let's start telling the
truth.
And let's face the fact that we've taken a
licking psychologically at least and
scientifically, and it has embarrassed us
throughout the world.
>> If Russia wins dominance in this completely
new area, well, I think the consequences are
fairly plain.
Probable Soviet world domination.
>> To understand why the Sputnik launch and all
the political rhetoric that followed was so
effective in scaring Americans, you have to get a
sense of what America was like back then.
The time was 1957.
The king of rock-n-roll, Elvis Presley.
>> Rock-n-roll was new, and Elvis was the king.
Gasoline was cheap, 25 cents a gallon.
And it was pumped for you by uniformed
attendants.
>> Service without having to ask for it.
>> Telephones had rotary dials, and when you
needed to look up information, you didn't go
online, you went to the library and looked through
index cards.
>> 7 million index cards fill the row on row of
drawers that line the calls.
>> It was a very different world than the one
we live in today.
And perhaps one of the biggest differences is
that it was the early days of national television.
Television was revolutionary, and it made it
possible for America to show itself to itself and
to the world.
>> Television is most certainly here to stay.
>> Everything presented on TV looked different
than shows look today, and quite often the people
appearing on TV looked, by today's standards,
uncomfortable.
And they were.
Shows were live then, and TV cameras were huge.
And remember, almost no one had ever been in
front of a TV camera before.
So when this intimidating box was pointed at
them.
People often spoke in ways that seemed a bit
stilted.
>> Our son Merritt took the course.
He understands the rules and he follows them.
>> It's tempting to chuckle and look at these
people from the 1950s as uptight.
The students like it, the parents like it, and
best of all, it works.
>> But don't let this fool you.
Look behind their unease, and you will find
that these people were ordinary American citizens,
just like us who felt lucky to be living in what
they felt were the best of times.
And in many ways, they were.
As a nation they had been through some very
rough times.
Ten years of the great depression, and six
years of World War II where tens of millions had
died.
And much of Europe and Asia were destroyed.
Now, post-war Americans felt that it was
finally their time to settle down, to live what
was called the good life.
For most Americans, the good life meant working
toward living the American dream.
>> Maybe a nice home in suburbia and some nice
kids and a beer and ball game on Saturday
afternoon.
>> We will have the living room right here, and
the kitchen right here.
Oh, Daniel, it's going to be just perfect.
>> The American dream, owning a home.
>> Because with a home we can live and work as
Americans.
>> And a car or maybe two.
>> And an American car.
We have a right to take pride in our cars.
>> And modern appliances their grandparents had
never known.
>> You can own your own home, complete with its
own refrigerator, television set and clothes
dryer.
>> Well, here's real emancipation from old
fashioned chores.
>> A refrigerator, washer and dryer, perhaps a
dishwasher, and so much more.
And all of this was possible because of our
industrial and economic power, and because of what
was commonly called better living through science.
>> Inventors, engineers and manufacturers
continually offer us improvements so we can
have...
>> Ever greater progress in science and
business that ensure a way of life that is
physically gratifying and spiritually uplifting.
>> Chemists have a lot to do with this, turning
coal into everything from truck tires to sheer
nighties.
>> The world of science has given us some
fabulous things.
>> Materials which make fabrics more beautiful
and easier to care for than natural ones.
>> New and better stretch yarn for women's
stockings.
>> In the world of tomorrow, plastics will
certainly call a tune.
>> The scientist has something to offer to the
public which is far, far more than gadgets and
inventions.
>> We had faith in our science and our
scientists.
In the 1950s American scientists had given us
the discovery of DNA.
>> The thread of life.
>> And the Salk polio vaccine.
>> The vaccine can prevent paralyzing polio.
Invented by Dr. Jonas Salk.
>> And American engineers won high praise
worldwide for our highway system and millions of
miles of paved roads.
>> More motorized ability than ever dreamed of
before.
Freedom of movement for all, symbol of
democracy.
>> We have become the nation on wheels.
>> And this is Levittown.
Levittown, one of the world's largest single
unit housing developments.
>> To make the American dream a reality for
everyone, developers were building tens of
millions of houses.
>> The budget priced home.
This symbol of modern American living has
changed the great USA.
>> You can raise your children far from the
city's dirt, crowding and crime, in comfort and
safety.
>> Suburban cities sprang up almost overnight,
with new water supply systems, streetlights, sewer
systems, electrical power grids and more.
Much of the infrastructure we depend on today
was built during this time.
As millions of people bought homes and got
college degrees, and "settled down" they became a
part of something that the world had never seen:
The huge American middle class.
>> Never in history has the American family
known such well-being.
>> A standard of living beyond the wildest
dreams of anyone who lived a half century ago.
>> Today the middle class American dream is
sometimes made fun of.
But for adults at that time it wasn't funny.
It was literally a dream come true.
But there was a dark cloud hanging over that
dream, over every home, over every suburb and
every city.
>> The possibility of a nuclear war in which
some will survive.
>> You are the target of those who would
trample the liberties of free men.
You are in the cross hairs of the bomb sight,
an enemy is centering on you, the United States of
America.
>> We face a hostile ideology, global in scope,
Atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and
insidious in man.
>> Communist Soviet Russia was bragging to the
world that they could and very well might destroy
us.
And the Soviets had recently exploded a huge
destructive hydrogen bomb.
>> We have successfully detonated a 20 megaton
hydrogen bomb.
This is of a weight that our current rocket can
carry anywhere.
Our Sputnik proves to the world that we have
the ICBM, the ultimate weapon.
>> Sputnik and the rocket that launched it made
all of this Soviet blustering and threatening very
real and very scary.
>> Do we have any defense against Russia's
intercontinental ballistic missile?
>> No, we have not.
>> In just 30 days after the launch of Sputnik,
things were about to get even more scary.
>> We carried our lovely space dog down to the
capsule and placed her inside.
She was groomed for her voyage.
We attached the instruments, bid her farewell
and turned away from the launch pad.
And didn't look back.
>> NBC News, presents a special report on the
Russian launching of the second Earth satellite.
Now to guide in report here in New York is NBC
News commentator, Merrill Mueller.
>> Good afternoon.
A dog knocked a goat right out of the world's
attention today.
In a masterpiece of propaganda timing, the
Soviet Union announced it had launched Sputnik
number 2, carrying a live dog.
This is reportedly history's first space
traveler.
>> Moscow reports this morning that the dog in
the new Sputnik is in satisfactory condition and,
the reds hint that she may be parachuted safely
back to Earth.
>> The dog, barking his way around the Earth
every 122 minutes, has won Russia new respect.
A British editor asked me, half jokingly: How
does it feel to be the citizen of a second rate
power?
>> When people around the world heard about
Laika being in outer space, many mocked us, and
our prestige plummeted among our allies,
especially those wore neutral.
The Japanese thought that the Russians did it
again.
It was a blow to the American prestige.
>> The thing that America used to stand for
were the shot that was fired around the world, the
sense of being the vanguard of human liberation
and human progress.
I don't think America stands there today.
>> To lead the world, we needed the world's
respect.
Now Soviet Russia, who we had mocked as
technologically and scientifically backwards and
primitive, were years ahead of us.
The Soviets took advantage of this.
>> The hand of Soviet friendship has been
reaching into every part of the world which shows
the slightest inclination to receive it.
>> Premier Nikita Khrushchev traveled to the
less developed nations and said that we were
second rate; not only because our science and
technology was inferior, but because we were not a
true democracy.
And he had proof.
In Little Rock, Arkansas white segregationists
were violently protesting against nine black
students who were just trying to go to high
school.
>> The minute they walk in is when we walk out.
>> That's not right.
They have schools just as good as ours.
>> We don't have a choice like they do.
>> They can go to ours or they can go to their
own.
We have to go to the white school.
>> We should have rights, too.
Negras ain't the only ones that have the
rights.
>> Thanks to international media coverage, the
world was watching.
And it looked to us the Russians were winning
the battle for hearts and for minds, and that our
way of life was being rejected.
>> One-third of the world is free, one third of
the world is Communist.
One-third of the world is uncommitted.
The Communist struggle for that other third is
going to decisively weight the balance of power
and force and influence in the world for
generations to come.
>> Third world nations had the choice to align
themselves with either America or the Communists,
and it looked like many were not going to choose
America.
And that wasn't all.
The nightly news told us that a Russian dog in
outer space with a life support system meant that
next soldiers could be sent up who could attack us
from space.
And from space, the Russians could control the
entire planet.
>> The kind of thing that a month ago would
have sounded like a joke.
But in Washington now anyone who cares to laugh
at this does so at his own risk.
>> It is quite possible that an aggressor
nation who dominates space will dominate the
world.
We just can't let that happen.
>> This constitutes the greatest crisis in the
history of America.
>> All of this in such a short period of time
was too much.
The American people cried out for a response.
President Eisenhower, pressured by America's
concern, reacted and announced in just a month we
would launch our first satellite called Vanguard.
>> America's first attempt to launch a
satellite, a six-and-a-half-inch sphere weighing
just over 3 pounds was checked out by scientists
and declared ready.
A great wave of advanced publicity focused
attention at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the
launching of Project Vanguard.
Newsmen from all over the world were flown down
for the big turkey shoot.
At the launching site they were given a
play-by-play account.
They witnessed each tiny detail of the usually
top secret preparation.
It was carnival time at Cape Canaveral.
All through the day and night, thousands of
people thronged the nearby beaches and jetties,
waiting eagerly for the big moment.
>> This is Charles Von Friend reporting from
Cape Canaveral.
Reporters and photographers have gathered here
throughout the night and early morning.
Now it is almost noon.
We expect the Project Vanguard missile carrying
the first United States satellite to be launched
momentarily.
>> Inside the block house, the tension steadily
mounts.
>> Vanguard started sounding like the money of
some massive dinosaur.
Fire filled its nozzles.
It spit flame first, then built with great
crescendo to a tremendous howl.
It ripped itself from its chains, began to rise
slowly.
We all rose with it.
Oh God, no, somebody screamed.
>> I don't see it.
I think the launching has been unsuccessful.
>> It seemed as the gates of hell had opened.
>> Before unbelieving eyes, the giant began to
topple.
>> There is a sigh of disappointment through
the crowd of observers.
>> It took just seven seconds to set back a
nation's pride.
>> Our first attempt to launch an Earth
satellite has apparently ended in failure.
>> This grievous blow to our already waning
world prestige, one of the most humiliating
failures in all our history.
>> Our Sputniks are circling the world.
Now, with America's failure, it will not be
able to stop the forward march of Communism.
>> After Vanguard, the pundits increased the
intensity of their statements, warning us of our
impending doom.
>> Ye, the Christian civilization that you and
I know and love stands in greater danger today
than it has in 20 centuries.
>> I believe the American people have to meet
this threat with the same urgency that we would if
this nation were in an all-out war.
Unless we approach it from that standpoint, we
may well go down the drain, as other great
civilizations have in the past.
>> After the disaster, one thing seemed crystal
clear: We could no longer keep doing what we had
been doing.
Life as we had been living it could not
continue.
As a nation, we needed to make major changes.
Then, in an extraordinary moment, Americans
looked inside and began to analyze ourselves, to
ask what we had been doing, what had gone wrong,
and what could be done to improve it?
>> Somehow there has to be sort of a switch in
concentration it seems to me in this country.
I think we have to decide whether we want the
super fancy kitchen and 500 horsepower under the
hood or whether we want to match the Russians.
>> Are we mastering science, or is science
mastering us? That's a serious question.
Because science dominates so much of our life.
>> Individuals across America from the left,
the right and the middle began to speak out,
saying we had been misdirecting our scientists and
engineers, wasting their brain power on useless
frivolities, like designing bigger tail fins and
plush carpeting that was whiter and brighter.
>> I'm not a scientist myself.
I don't speak the technical language of
scientists.
When the scientists talk, it doesn't seem they
are talking my language, either.
Who is going to bridge that gap?
>> I have created a new office, an office
called the Office of Special Assistant to the
President to Science and Technology.
>> President Eisenhower took the lead in this
internal examination and formed a scientific
advisory team headed by Dr. James Killian that
would report directly to him.
The team was charged with finding out what we
were doing wrong, and with doing whatever was
necessary to refocus America on the importance of
science and scientists.
>> My scientific advisors place this problem
above all other immediate tasks of producing
missiles, of developing new techniques in the
armed services.
We need scientists.
In the ten years ahead they say we need them by
thousands more than we're now presently planning
to have.
>> Tonight I want to talk to you particularly
about this business of education.
When I say education, I mean the problems of
education.
>> Each night on TV leaders said that it was
our educational system that failed us, and that we
were all responsible.
Our parents, our teachers, our administrators,
even our students.
>> It seems to me we've never been in a greater
mess in our lives, as a nation.
>> And we adults started questioning our
educational system.
How come the Russians had scientists and
engineers that could do these things and we
didn't?
>> What we've got to do is start right in the
high schools and toughen up our scientific
education so that we can produce those productive,
creative people that we need so badly.
>> The American people must strengthen their
educational system if the safety and the security
and prosperity of this country is going to be
maintained.
>> We have to try at the root of the
difficulty. It's about educating the whole
population of 170 million people.
>> If I may put it this way, our whole hope for
survival is through education.
>> We must concern ourselves much more than we
ever have with the training of our children's
minds.
>> And so, the finger of blame was being
steadily pointed at education. President
Eisenhower led this national self analysis and
asked Americans to change how our young people
were being educated.
>> To scrutinize your school's curriculum and
standards. Then decide yourselves whether they
meet the stern demands of the era we are entering.
>> Improving how and what American students
learned was going to be quite a challenge for many
reasons.
And for one reason especially:
The baby boom.
>> Babies all over the map.
>> Babies.
Babies.
Babies.
>> The post-World War II rise of the middle
class had produced a huge number of babies.
The largest generation in world history.
All of these young people had been causing a
huge overcrowding before Sputnik, and schools had
been straining to the breaking point.
>> Your child's school nearly doubled its
enrollment.
The result: Classroom shortage.
>> There weren't enough classrooms and desks.
They gave my boy half a seat.
To give every student some kind of education,
many schools had resorted to teaching kids in
shifts students sat at their desks for just two
hours and then went home.
And other students replaced them at those same
desks, up to four times a day.
Classes met wherever there was room, even in
barber shops.
The baby boomers were stressing the entire
system.
But this was hardest on the teachers.
Overworked and underpaid, just when we needed more
of them.
Many teachers were quitting.
>> With deep regret I hereby submit my
resignation as a teacher in the school system for
the forthcoming year for reasons ...
>> Teachers tried to keep control of classrooms
of 30 to 60 students and were forced to spend more
and more of their time just being disciplinarians.
>> Keeping discipline had become one of the
biggest chores of the crowded classroom.
>> Mike, Fred!
>> And those that persevered resorted to
teaching their huge classes of students by rote.
>> And so to control the crowd, to hold their
attention, miss Roberts was forced to return to
whole group instruction, teaching the mass instead
of the individual, teaching by rote.
>> 1, 2, 3, 4, put your feet on the floor.
1, 2, 3, 4 ...
>> Teaching no longer stimulating to the
students or the teacher.
>> The slow learners aren't getting the
attention they need, and the bright ones are
bored.
>> And it gets worse every day.
But for the time being, we've got to live with
it, doing the best job we can.
>> Even if it's a bad job?
>> All we can do for the present is try the
best we know how.
>> To leave no stone unturned in our
self-examination, leaders traveled to Russia to
look at their educational system, to see what they
were doing that was different.
What we found, shocked us.
>> 30 years ago we had six times as many
scientists and engineers as the Soviet Union.
Now their colleges are turning out twice as
many technical people this year as ours are.
>> In the Soviet time, the science was a
priority in the society.
It was not the movie star, it was not the rich
man.
There was no rich men there.
You have to be scientist.
>> We learned that Russian kids went to school
six days a week; that their school year was 213
days long, compared to 180 days in America; that
every Russian kid, boy and girl, was required to
take math and engineering.
Russian students had up to four hours of
homework a night, where the average in America was
just 30 minutes.
>> The top notch minds are attracted to the
physical sciences and mathematics.
Their skills are so highly valued that no
expense is provided in providing them with
excellent technical facilities.
>> Take something like a Russian satellite to
put the finger on what's wrong with our education.
>> We need scientists.
We need technicians, we need mathematicians.
There is no doubt about that.
>> The community is awake now.
I think they're going to try to do something.
They are all excited about science and math.
It's been taken for granted for so long, now
suddenly, it's back in the spotlight again.
>> Education was in the spotlight.
And the lessons we took away from the Soviet
system were plain and simple.
>> We've got to do something, and we need an
educated population in science to be able to do
this.
It was like somebody slammed on the
accelerator, and all of a sudden everything was
open for discussion and examination.
>> We'd come face to face with the realization
that schools and survival are inseparable.
>> The time has come for a change.
>> We have to reorganize your schools.
>> Within just months of the failure of
vanguard, America began to do something
remarkable, something that few other nations would
have been capable of.
We began to come together, to become unified in
our determination to fix what was broken.
>> We don't have an adequate education program
in any of our schools.
>> Are you satisfied? Are you really satisfied
that your school and your community is doing all
that it can do for these youth?
>> Thousands of children are getting a shoddy
education.
>> The time has come for America to realize
that our Citadel now is the intelligence,
imagination and curiosity of the trained mind.
>> The American people must improve their
public schools, to make the nation strong to meet
whatever threat may come.
>> Each citizen should do what we can to
strengthen American education, to make the
position and the prestige of the teach you are
understood.
This I think they can do and they must do.
>> We were on a national mission, a mission
that is today referred to as the Sputnik moment.
>> The search for an education which will
develop the full potentiality of every boy and
girl.
We had to find the resources to pay teachers,
and we needed to enlist more of them.
The number of students per class had to be
reduced, more buildings had to be built, and the
techniques teachers use to teach kids had to
change radically, and change they did.
>> Yes, jack, the vacation will soon be over
and you'll be going back to school.
>> When students returned to their schools in
the fall of 1958, what they found was very
different from what had been there before.
The pressure was on.
Americans were redesigning their entire
educational system and asking students to take
their studies much more seriously, for the defense
of the country.
>> We used to laugh and say: Well, the
Russians might have launched Sputnik, but the
United States is launching us, because in all of
these new programs that were in the school.
And we all just jumped into it.
>> It was just like an avalanche, because the
response of the United States was to institute
this huge science and technology enrichment
program.
>> In every classroom and in every course of
study, a focus on science and engineering and math
was being encouraged.
>> Science is fun.
It helps you to know and to appreciate.
In the study of science is found the most
useful and satisfying knowledge of man.
>> People were encouraged to take physics and
geometry and chemistry.
>> And there was an immense importance placed
on this, almost a stigma if you were going into
those things.
>> An atmosphere which removed the egg head
stigma.
Scholastic achievement is now recognized and
respected by both the students and adults.
>> How do I get high grades?
I work for them.
I'm not going to school just to put in time; I
want to be somebody.
>> And it was all heavy duty college prep
mathematically based, we're going to train
scientists.
And the curriculum went that way, the courses
became very difficult.
It was a revolution, it's going to be tough.
>> We were just loaded down with all kind of
books and new classes and homework.
>> For many years I'd just been able to drift
through school.
I never did homework until my junior year in
high school and all of a sudden I was hit with
this.
It sort the rocked me.
>> It used to be I could get through chemistry
and physics, you could slide through, the coach
will let me through.
All of a sudden this wasn't that way anymore.
All of a sudden it was like they were looking
for something.
>> What did you get in chemistry?
>> I had a 79.
>> Holy mackerel.
You've got to get those grades up, if you
expect to go to college.
What are you going to major in?
>> I hope to major in science.
>> Science? With the grades you've been
getting in science -- listen, is football
interfering with your studying?
>> I hope not, Coach.
>> You must have those grades up, definitely.
It's either studies and football or just studies
alone.
>> Sports mattered less.
Science mattered more.
>> Why study science? Study science because
you and the Bettys and the Joes and Jills and
Janes all over the country will find in the study
of science a richer, more rewarding life.
>> The National Science Foundation came out
with a whole science and math program.
There were enrichment classes for mathematics
and physics and chemistry.
I was just caught up with all that.
>> Science had been defined with a small S.
In biology this meant dissecting frogs; in
mathematics, learning a series of equations; the
same with physics.
Now science was broadening.
In every area of study, a focus on science was
becoming a critical part of what students had to
learn.
>> So that you can heal the sick, so that you
can build the bridges and buildings and highways
of tomorrow, so that you can teach, inspire and
encourage those who come after you.
All these and more require a basic knowledge of
science.
>> A course that boys took, shop, had changed.
Here's how it was.
>> It's fun to do things that come out right.
>> Here's what it became.
>> Here the task is to build a transformer and
test its application to electromagnetic
principles.
>> A course that girls took, home economics
changed.
Here is how it was.
>> It would be a minor tragedy.
>> Here's what it became.
>> In home economics, the girls plan nutritious
and economical menus.
Arranging different food budgets, they check
price lists and newspaper advertisements.
>> Educators were changing the basic ways that
students learned.
>> We are attempting to find out how to use
teachers best in the classrooms.
>> Students who previously learned by
repetition and memorization were being pushed to
think for themselves.
>> Good teachers, challenging students to think
for themselves.
>> Individualized studies now demanded work at
home that took more time and concentration.
Parents were telling their children that it was
each student's responsibility to grow into a
useful adult, to become an engineer, a scientist,
a mathematician or doctor.
And finally, women were being encouraged to
become scientists.
>> Judy Messer, future lab technician.
Mary Lewis, she likes science and -- who knows?
Celia Mortimer, fascinated by nuclear physics and
hopes to make it a career.
>> Now it seemed important to be a scientist
and engineer and get in on all this work that was
going on.
>> Today, students carry their interest in
science lessons beyond the four walls of the
classroom.
They see the need to understand the complex
scientific ideas of the world around them.
>> Teachers focused boys and girls on
scientific ways to examine life, inside and also
outside the classroom.
>> Students take part in science programs,
science clubs, they go on field trips, see films
about science.
The wide world of science waiting for
investigation.
>> The ultimate in do it yourself projects for
the homework shop of 16-year-old Curt Golden,
Arthur the robot.
>> Individual American kids by the thousands
began to create science projects on their own.
>> Victor Scheinman, 16, the idea, a device for
printing a spoken letter.
A challenging idea.
He went to his science teacher to outline his
theories, his plans and his problems.
>> Tom Delaney, wants to be an electronics
engineer.
Right now he's building his own rocket.
>> More and more teenagers are passing up
rock-n-roll for a rocket roll.
>> At Camp A.P. Hill, Virginia the Army plays
host to some guest rocket experts, amateurs,
teenagers all.
More than 100 high school boys showed up on the
firing range with rockets designed and built by
themselves.
>> Rocket boys, as they were called, to beat
the Russians, were going to try and build and
launch homemade rockets.
>> I started mixing my own homemade rocket
fuel.
My mother was very supportive of my
experiments.
She gave me a piece of her vacuum cleaner
extension, and I had some fins that I cut out of
sheet metal welded to these things.
I made nozzles out of plaster of Paris and
would take them out into the desert and launch
these things.
>> They were not rockets, they were pipe bombs
with fins.
It's amazing I didn't kill myself.
They were very, very dangerous, but I was
completely fascinated and was doing my best to get
rock either as high as I possibly could.
I had two-stage rockets.
My goal was to get a rocket into the
stratosphere, if I could.
This is one of my early rocket experiments.
Notice the plaster of Paris bulkhead, welded
steel fins, plaster of Paris nozzle.
>> I gathered in some friends that had been
friends all my whole life, and we decided we were
going to form a club called the big creek missile
agency, and we were going to build rockets.
We had absolutely no clue on how to do this.
We started to research rockets, we read
everything we possibly could.
Our teacher, Miss Riley, got involved and she
got us a book called principles of guided missile
design, which required a working knowledge of
calculus and deferential equations.
And I was having trouble with algebra at the
time.
We blew up a lot of things.
We dodged a lot of shrapnel.
Ultimately we ended up building professional
style rockets that were flying literally miles
into the sky.
We just felt someday what we were doing was
going to help the United States to be number one
in space.
We wanted our country to catch up with the
Russians, and we wanted to just keep on going
forever.
>> The Sputnik moment was provoking amazing
changes.
And one of the most important changes took
place when Congress, pushed by Americans of all
stripes, provided a massive increase in funding.
Science, math and engineering education would
receive an infusion of more than a billion
dollars, with huge amounts of financial aid
provided for scholarships so students could attend
colleges and graduate schools.
>> The government put tremendous amount of
money into revamping the physics and chemistry and
the new texts came out, the new courses came out,
lab manuals, all paid for by the government.
>> And a whole series of national scholarships
were announced, and money was flowing into the
universities for the purpose of getting kids into
that arena.
I was one of the fortunate ones.
>> The new law was called the National Defense
Education Act.
The name made clear the connection that
everyone felt:
Education was critical to our national defense.
>> We can no longer depend on air power,
whether it be bombers or guided missiles.
We must depend on brain power.
We must depend on the ability of our
educational institutions to cultivate that brain
power so that it maybe used as well as it possibly
can be.
>> Through the years we've taken education for
granted, even grown neglectful.
All around us things have been changing.
And now suddenly schools have a lot to do with
national security and our survival.
Now there is trouble and we realize that the
trouble is with brains and training and
technology.
>> If this nation should, unfortunately, be
called upon to defend itself, the real front line
soldier would be the scientists with the test tube
and the Geiger counter.
>> The National Defense Education Act created
thousands of high school science laboratories with
tools that went way beyond the traditional
microscope.
>> The use of a videotape recorder and a
kinescope, we are able to provide many film clips,
many kinds of materials that are just not
available to the classroom teacher.
>> New funding brought television to the
classroom, and television brought the world to
students and connected students to the world.
>> Involvement? Interest? Judge for yourself.
These boys are at Cape Canaveral helping with
the countdown of another rocket.
The excitement heightens, but a clever science
teacher has turned this program into a lesson in
propulsion, gravity and atmospherics.
>> Language labs, utilizing electronic
apparatus and minor theories of learning, are
especially important.
>> Gone were the studies of Latin and Greek.
In addition to French and German, new language
laboratories now taught Russian and Chinese.
>> The universities who never taught Russian
before were encouraged to institute Russian
courses.
And in that first year, after 1957, there were
more people applying to learn Russian in this
country than I'd ever seen before.
>> The Sputnik moment had provoked an amazing
time in America.
Thanks to the National Defense Education Act
scholarships, millions of men and women went to
college to study scientific and technical courses.
They went on to attack problems and uncover
opportunities in every area of life.
And they initiated American-led revolutions in
electronics, computer science, psychology,
environmental and Earth sciences, and they created
and built the Internet.
>> The idea of building this network and being
able to share resources and to interact with each
other and get programs to talk to each other was
enormously fascinating.
It was very exciting.
>> Newspapers, magazines, mail and messages
will be sent through the air at lightning speed,
and reproduced in the home.
>> The space race that began with Sputnik ended
in July 1969, when Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
landed on the moon.
>> One small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind.
This has to be the proudest day of our lives.
>> America had caught up and won.
That race was now over.
But what about today, and more importantly,
tomorrow?
Is there another Sputnik waiting for us ahead?
Perhaps just around the corner?
Or perhaps is it already here?
Today in many ways America again leads the
world.
But as the old saying goes, those who do not
remember history are bound to repeat its mistakes.
It pays for us to reconsider the Sputnik moment
and how every American felt a need to take
personal responsibility and to act.
