Re:What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)
by WalterBright on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @01:12AM
(#15754695)
The way I read it, there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace, and with itchy fingers on the launch button, Eisenhower was unwilling to provoke the Soviet Union. He delayed the space program until the Soviets launched Sputnik, which settled the issue. If that's true, it was a good, pragmatic decision.
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Re:What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)
by wallace_f on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @01:45AM
(#15754823)
I have heard that as well,
but to the best of my knowledge I don't believe it is accurate. Here is Wikipedia, from the Space Race page.
>The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961
Re:What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)
by greenhouse_gas on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @01:09PM
(#15758973)
>there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace
Almost. He didn't want to avoid launching satellites, he wanted to avoid launching _military_ satellites, which is why they had to use Vanguard (which was a civilian rocket). Once Sputnik launched on an R-7, there was no more need.