With the launching of the first Sputnik by the Russians, the American people realized that a society which was re-
garded as less advanced than ours, was in fact, definitely
ahead of ours in at least one field. And of course there was
the uneasy feeling that perhaps the Russians \vere also
ahead in many other branches of science and technology.
This feeling was later strengthened by the Soviet success in
sending men into orbit around the earth.