Function momentarily took backseat to form in the design of the Sputnik I craft. The beachball-sized craft had only four extended antennae attached to it to give telemetry (and broadcast the iconic beep-beep-beep first sounds from space), while its external metal was polished to high gloss to help recognition by telescope. Sergei P. Korolëv U.S.S.R.’s dean of design at the time, insisted on the gloss and the adjoining atennaes to appear pleasing to the eye. He declared “This ball will be exhibited in museums!” The Soviet Union was indeed about to make history.

On this day, October 4, in 1957, everyone with a television or radio sat transfixed by the story of the first ever spacecraft launched into the earth’s orbit. The Sputnik I (its name meaning “fellow traveler”) orbited around every 98 minutes, transmitting its telemetry to radio stations and televisions around the world.

The U.S. had plans for a launch of their own — they were just much slower to unfold. In 1952, a meeting of the International Council of Scientific Unions decided to establish July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958 as the optimal period to launch a satellite. In July 1955, the White House announced plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite and two months later the Naval Research Laboratory was chosen to go ahead with their proposed plan. Meanwhile, the Soviet central planners were dictating the work to go on with Sputnik.