‘Kaputnik’: America’s Largely Forgotten Disastrous First Attempt to Launch a Satellite 

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"I aimed for the stars, but i kept hitting London" - Werner von Braun (allegedly)

My father attended a talk by Von Braun at the University of Indiana in the late 1950s. He explained the government's choice by saying most congressmen were farmers and were very impressed by the colorful slides presented by the Navy while his own black and white slides full of numbers just bored them.

Vanallen used to give a lecture about the belts. He'd start the lecture wearing a buttoned up sports coat and ask the students if they're like to see the vanallen belts. He'd then open the jacket displaying the multiple belts he was wearing under the jacket

I feel like Business Blaze - Simon is slowly seeping into all of Simon’s other channels, and I am absolutely loving it

R.I.P. Laika, a good dog. The Soviets may never have planned to bring you back alive, but you'll always live on in our hearts and minds...and in pop culture references

15:36 Vacuum tubes work just fine in space without an atmosphere. The reason they went to transistors was size, cost, MUCH lower power needs, and lack of waste heat. The pressurized nitrogen was for heat dissipation using a small fan. Sputnik 1 and 2 both used vacuum tubes for their radio/telemetry transmitters that worked quite well.

‘Kaputnik’ whom ever coined that is a Genius.

Sputnik was more than just an aluminum basketball with a radio transmitter inside. It was designed to test the upper atmosphere to measure precisely how dense the upper atmosphere actually was. This data was later used to know how long the Vostok spacecraft needed to last to keep the pilot alive in case the retro rocket system failed. The Vostok missions were launched so that the craft would come back down eventually incase of a failure. They would not be stuck in space until their life support ran out.

Vanguard actually was pretty average as far as booster development was concerned, many others failed, although not usually as publicly. It also launched 2 other satellites before being discontinued. Also, the individual components of the Vanguard were very well designed. The third stage was used as an upper stage for several other rockets. The 2nd stage renamed "Able" was used on several rockets, and its AJ-10 engine was used in quite a few - variants served as the main engine of the Apollo CSM and as the OMS engines on the Shuttle for example. The first stage engine was also used elsewhere can't remember where right off though. I'll look it up.

Simon bloopers give me life LOL I know lately they've been left in for the most part, but a 15 or 20 minute long cavalcade of malapropisms, cursing, and other flubbery would be quite entertaining, to me at least...;)

As I recall, the Vanguard project was done by the Navy, while the Redstone project was done by the Army. The Vanguard attempt was first, but it blew up on the pad. The Redstone project, atop the Jupiter C, launched America's first satellite into space. NASA was formed soon after, and all space rocketry was done by it afterwards. The military still did combat rockets & missiles.

As an old Cold War survivor, i find these 21st century balanced retellings most refreshing! Thank you Simon& Co. 🖖

Explorer 1 reentered March 1917? It was launched February 1, 1958, so neat trick. It actually reentered March 31, 1970

Nikita Kreuchev: “LOL that grape fruit satellite”! Also Nikita Kreuchev: “Spitnik I”!

Simon, while you're at it, consider making an episode about that time an F-15 shot down a freaking satellite!

"American components, Russian components...all made in Taiwan!" -Lev Andropov

In the late 60s I was in a shop class. The teacher was out sick and the substitute ran a film for us of launch failures. I can still remember that film.

The dog, Laika has become famous in Syfy pop culture. With multiple appearances in shows such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Space Dandy.

The video from 11:35 to 11:58 is not of the launch being described in the commentary. In the actual video of that Vanguard failure, the rocket barely got off the pad (2 seconds as Simon stated), then largely collapsed into a fireball as is shown in the 11:58 still shot. It is still an interesting video of an early failure that I don't recall having seen before, and it provides a path for Simon's excellent narrative, so it is still enjoyable... but... (And, not having read the comments before typing this, I'm probably being redundant, but what the heck...) It took me awhile to find and watch this video after seeing it mentioned in a more recent production, but it was worth the wait! Thanks again, Simon!

There was the old joke that they were renaming Vanguard "Civil Service" because they can't fire it, or get it to work. Yet after the very public failures it went on to play a big part in the space program. I guess you don't advance without a bit of development pain.

Fun fact: we use the term "Kaputnik" in Germany to describe a (positively) crazy or scatty person. :-D

A friend of mine, an Aero Elec specialist, was invited to Indonesia some years back, to evaluate why so many of their Soviet Mig 27 were not deployable. First thing, he was stunned by the use of Vacuum Tubes in much of the avionics. He at first believed he was being set up, a modern fighter with Vacuum Tubes? Turns out, export versions were so fitted. So, tropical temperatures and humidity, hard landings, even wind sheer events caused failures. The only fix could be a full upgrade to the avionics, but much stressing, corrosion and other problems with the airframe led to much retirement. Incredible how Motorola managed to make Vacuum Tubes work in the Walkie Talkie.

I'm just old enough to remember when every time a slow plane would fly over, people would run outside to see the "satellite". I guess people still do that when the space station goes over.

You didn’t mention the Soviets sending the first women, Valentina Tereshkova, something that NASA didn’t match until 20 years later.

Dont remember what channel it was, but one of your channels got me to get Curiosity Stream. Thank you Simon, you made it so i can actually enjoy watching shows on a television again

At work we nerdily observed the 50th anniversary of the space age to the minute, 1928 UTC 4 October 2007. Since that was late in the day in Moscow and the Soviets never announced anything until it was a done deal, Pravda for 4 October 1957 didn't say much. The next morning, 5 October 1957, was another matter entirely.

I heard sputnik worked on the same frequency as a lot of garage door openers. It would open a lot of these early automatic garage doors.

Nice contents. Interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing 👍😊

Lol rarely do I follow the sponsor of the videos I watch but curiosity stream is right up my alley lol thanks for the offer code. Love your videos man. Keep it going!

Really good and thorough episode

“Soviet missiles (whoosh) Venus! American missiles (sput sput) Miami Beach!” - Otto Ludwig Piffl, One,Two,Three (1961)

“Expected to remain in orbit for another thousand years” Orbital debris: I’m about to ruin this mans whole career

In about 6 years I expect your beard to be out of frame. It's awesome!

12:08 and that laugh after I had to rewind to check if I heard you right hahahaha

OK, the thumbnail mislead me. This is not Blaze lol. Oh well, love TIFO so here we go

17:00 Cute, but they did get every single 'first' until the moon landings.

Very impressive how incredibly stable Vanguard's orbit is, and how quickly the Sputnik orbits deteriorated.

You can stand a few inches from the first Vanguard1A (the one that started transmitting from crash site) at the Air and Space Museum in DC.

One of my favorite rundowns of early NASA is the beginning of The Right Stuff (the movie, haven't seen the series). The movie starts with a montage of real videos of failure after failure.

If anyone knows 'Dave Berg Dept.' in _MAD_ magazine, you'll remember Roger Kaputnik.

My mom grew up in Cocoa Beach a stones throw from the Launch Complex, she used to joke that they went to the launches to watch them blow up, like it was so common they were actually shocked when one worked in the first 3 years she was there.

The actual Vanguard satellite, although small, was a good bit larger than the 'grapefruit' test satellite that was part of TV-3 and was fairly sophisticated.

I remember the social shock of Sputnik, how it was the center of discussion for weeks and the impact it had on our focus as a nation.

I remember it well.... I was a teenager at the time. Even then, there was covert news of Soviet failures, some of which cost lives both on the ground and in space, but were never officially reported or admitted. The American efforts were all very public though..... and of course there was the political element holding things up. If they had gone with the Redstone rockets from the start they would have stayed ahead of the USSR all through, but complacency made them look a bit silly for a while.

Excellent! Thank you.

Wait, I just spent a few minutes cleaning my comp screen. Then I realized it's a filter that's been used to show photos etc. I'll take my 'walk of shame' now!

Hey! Love your channels. Do a mega project on the F-14 Tomcat! Please. 😁

Gotta love that moment when the Business Blaze demon kicks out the TIFO demon and takes control for a moment.

Serious Simon with glittering eyes trying not to burst out laughing - and failing.....🤣

Minor error here. Explorer 1 was launched on January 31st, not March 17th. I remembered this date since high school.

Simon your beard has really grown and now has a personality of its own!

Armstrong's actual quote was "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Source: Armstrong himself. His Ohio accent made the "for a" slurred, resulting in most not hearing the article 'a'--including Walter Cronkite, who repeated Armstrong's quote as "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." If you think about it, it only makes sense if the article is included--he was contrasting the action of an individual (himself, jumping off the ladder onto the surface of the moon) with what it represented to mankind as a whole. This has been studied by Ohio State and Michigan State with inconclusive results, but results that nevertheless bolster Armstrong's claim.

1:17 technically he said “…step for A man…” but the a was lost in transmission

Now they just make us wait for 50-60 years before they...delay the next manned mission yet again.

Good lord Simon and Co. Just lit up my notification feed

"Kaputnik" lmao I should not be laughing this hard at that.

FYI: There is an excellent 2005 BBC mini-series called "Space Race" that covers the German V-2 rocket and the early days of the U.S. and Soviet space programs. The four parts are available on RU-vid, at least in the U.S.

A bit off topic, but what would happen to Australia's flag if Scotland left the UK? Assuming the Union Jack would change with the loss of the north, would that change be reflected Down Under as well?

My Dad gave me a nickname after Sputnick. He called me "Boop" until the day he died. You could pick up the boop sound on AM radio.

I remember when Sputnik flew over Sydney, Australia, in 1957.

Love we're still using the code for the seemingly defunct podcast.

Woo, lunch time vid time!

So like...is the Brain food show still a thing? Would love to listen to another one of those at some point.

Regardless of the rest of the video, you got my thumbs-up at "kaputnik". (and I'm amazed you were able to pull that entire statement off before finally cracking up)

I think Roger Kaputnik was the bespectacled guy n Mad Magazine's "The Lighter Side Of.." comic strip.

In response to Sputnik, US orbited Echo, a silver mylar balloon. I remember the whole city of Denver standing out doors from our houses and apartments looking up one night as we could all see the tiny white dot that was Echo pass over head. We were all smiling, wrapped up in what that meant. I was seven but remember it well..

Funnily enough - Kaput(कपूत) in Hindi means Unworthy son or Unworthy in general. Saput(सपुत) in Hindi means Deserving Son Sputnik(Спутник) in Russian translates to Fellow traveller.. I don't how that can help but here some Information

Soviets: haha satellite go *beep beep.* Americans : its the end..

I remember much of this story very well along w/ the "Air Raid" sirens that taught us to dive under our tables at school and cover our heads. The "Cold War" era Did serve as motivation to excell near the end of the "Technological Revolution" and put the United States on the map as the Superpower Nation where Free Speech and the "Pursuit of Happiness" had more appeal than the alternative. The Soviets put a Satellite over Everyone's heads and had there been no response, we might all be seeing an entirely different version of this on RU-vidski.

11:50 Damn he's trying so hard not to laugh. I'm an American, and I simply bust out laughing at that.

"We have patents for that, pay up." The estate of Robert Goddard, probably.

That offer of aid from the soviets is the most intense diplomatic burn I have ever heard. I can see how it’s hard to keep a straight face.

So that's why they called it they stayputnik in KSP...

Love ur videos!😍😍😍

There were only three Sputnik launches. Or, more properly, Prosteyshiy Sputnik ("elementary satellite"). What Western observers have called Sputnik 4 etc. were more properly named Korabl-Sputnik 1 to 5. The Korabl-Sputnik programme did indeed include the recovery of the dogs Belka and Strelka on Korabl-Sputnik 2, along with forty mice and two rats. The occupants of Korabl-Sputnik 3, Pcholka and Mishka, were the last dogs to be killed in the Soviet space programme. Their de-orbit burn did not shut off as planned, and the capsule self-destruct was triggered to avoid the technology falling into the hands of foreigners. Korabl-Sputnik 4 and 5 also involved the successful recovery of dogs after having orbited the earth (respectively, Chernushka and Zvezdochka). The Korabl capsule was later renamed Vostok when it carried Yuri Gagarin to fame in April 1961. However, the USA arguably won the space race in 1958, with the creation of NASA. Whereas the Soviet programme was delivered by several different research bureaux, each with responsibility for different technical areas, NASA was able to coordinate different fields and proposals and prioritise tasks to achieve the goal set by Kennedy in 1961. By contrast, the rivalry and lack of coordination in the Soviet space programme (held together only by Sergei Korolyev's dogged determination), fostered by inadequate funding and a culture of blame, meant that the more technologically difficult the goal, the less likely they were to achieve it. It's also arguable that the Gemini and Apollo programmes only received adequate funding because of Kennedy's death in 1963. Gemini and Apollo became a legacy of America's visionary president for the rest of the 1960s.

Nah . . The best Sputnik poem is as follows: "Happy little Sputnik friend, Has the Space Race reached its end? Is there room up in your hullnik, For Ike* and Dick, and Foster Dullnik?" -Anon *Ike Eisenhower (President of the USA), Dick Nixon (Vice President), and Foster Dulles (Secretary of State)

He said "one small step for *a* man..." it's difficult to hear clearly in the recording, but Armstrong clarified later.

TIFO video, BB thumbnail. The blaze will spread everywhere

Kaputnik!? lol! 19:15

That is cartoonish imagery of an R7 launch.

Me and the fly on my wall (one of the walls, I do have several. Not to brag of course) enjoyed this video. The fly has now flown away, presumably to tell its fly friends about what they have just learned. As for me well I'm gonna watch another video but before I do, I already have "Curiosity Stream" which I can highly recommend!

The late and great Neil Armstrong actually said "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind" . The 'a' is almost impossible to hear, but if you are expecting it, it's there.

Man I watched the video in 0.75 speed and now I understood everything he told. Inner peace

In The Shadow Government We Trust

11:58 The highlight of this video....LOL!!

The only reasons the US did not launch a satellite first are 1) Eisenhower wanted the Soviets to go first because then they would establish the Freedom of Space and 2) Eisenhower did not want the first US satellite to be launched by a former Nazi. Von Braun's team at ABMA absolutely could have beaten the Soviets, had they been given permission to do so. I am glad that Simon basically said both of these things, though he seems to think that the USSR establishing the Freedom of Space was some kind of "silver lining" as opposed to a specific intent of not racing the Soviets to orbit.

good discussion and could have been a megaproject topic

"does stress/work cause hair loss?" show idea

The rocket in 1956 did reach an altitude of 107km, above the Karman line but well below 1000km :)

Just the title of this video deserves a like and a subscribe! KAPUTNIK 🤣

I remember as a kid watching the ECHO satellite pass overhead at night while living in Portland Oregon.

Didn’t have to do my boi cheems like that lol

11:23 Why didn't you use the color, daytime film of the Vanguard blowing up on the launchpad?

NASA has been a make-work project for the last 50 years. There has not been one significant advancement in human space flight since Apollo, except maybe that winged vehicles are too dangerous (thanks Max Faget 😔) NASA is finally now doing for space flight what it does for aircraft which is to support commercial enterprise. Let’s hope that continues.

Kaputnik is hilariously underrated.

Simon suddenly discovers the Soviets had a sense of humour! Oh man, their "PR team" were often brilliant, and sometimes brilliantly hilarious, long before social media. Probably worth a video, get a researcher on it and you'll see what I mean.. And none of this stuff was lost in translation, either, it was delivered in English... Although there's also some hilarious or scary, bad subtitling, I seem to remember.

Of course the first attempt would suck That's how these things work Trial and error

This is only "almost forgotten" to people under 40. Everyone else knows about this lol

First planetary flyby was Mariner 2 at Venus in 1962.