Process Paper
Nate Pietraszak
Junior Division
Individual Website
Ever since I was young, I have always been fascinated by airplanes and flight. This interest caused me to consider the first successful flight by the Wright brothers as a possible topic. However, in fifth grade, I created a project on Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. This project turned my focus more towards the space aspects of flight, and created a stronger curiosity in spaceflight. This curiosity is what led me to decide on the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, as my topic.
Conducting my research, I studied the American government and the armed forces in their regards to space and its exploration around the time of Sputnik’s launch. I was able to use many books about space politics and policy in this era such as Countdown: A History of Space Flight. My U.S. History Class was granted access to the University of Washington Library, and there I was able to locate other books such as Politics of Space: A Comparison of the Soviet and American Space Programs and The Sputnik Crisis and Early United States Space Policy: a Crititque of the Historiography of Space to study the views of spaceflight before and after Sputnik. Also at the UW Library, I found microfilms of the Washington Post and online newspaper archives which I also used in my research. I also used several websites, which gave a good general overview of Sputnik. In my search for primary sources, I came across a few documents from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum, which provided an inside look at the government proceedings at the higher levels soon after the launch of Sputnik. I was also fortunately able to contact two NASA members from the Cold War and Space Race era, Jim Lovell and Jerry Bostick, who provided views of how the launch impacted America, as well as Ron Hobbs, a member of the Museum of Flight.
I decided on a website due to the ability to create a project that was informative, yet eye-catching at the same time. This format provides a higher word limit than another eye- catching format, an exhibit, while at the same time providing more options such as multimedia and formatting than a paper.
Sputnik 1 is closely related to this year’s theme, “Turning Points in History.” Sputnik was the very first object injected into orbit by humans, and opened the floodgates to many other satellites and spacecraft in the following years. It ignited the United States-USSR “Space Race,” and in doing so, brought about the greatest advancements in space technology in the history of spaceflight. Before, space exploration was viewed as outlandish and to unrealistic; afterwards, it became a very ideal option for research and advancement. Without these turning points, the United States wouldn’t have taken the initiative to seriously invest in their space program, and eventually become the dominant space power.