The day itself: history has made its first move, and the next one is yours.
Briefing
Friday, 4 October 1957. At 22:28 Moscow time an R-7 lifts the first artificial satellite from Tyuratam, on the rocket that is also the first intercontinental missile. Vanguard is weeks from its first try, von Braun's team waits for permission, and the newspapers cry missile gap. France fights the FLN in Algeria and its government has just fallen; Turkey's army stands on Syria's border; Hungary was crushed a year ago, and Suez cost Britain its standing. Decide who goes into space next, and what the rockets carry.
Real history stays a strong tendency: what happened later is planned for its date – until your actions change the world.
You govern: the orders are the state's.
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The world on 4 October 1957
On the evening of 4 October 1957 a Soviet R-7 rocket rises from the steppe at Tyuratam in Kazakhstan and puts an aluminium sphere of 84 kilograms into orbit. Sputnik circles the Earth every ninety-six minutes, and its radio beep is picked up by amateurs in America, Britain and Japan. The rocket that carried it is the world's first intercontinental missile, tested in August: the same engines could carry a hydrogen bomb to New York.
Washington is caught off guard. America's satellite, Vanguard, has not yet flown, and the Army's rocket team under Wernher von Braun, which could have launched one in 1956, was told to wait. The President plays down the danger, but the newspapers speak of a missile gap, and Congress of a new Pearl Harbor. In Moscow Khrushchev, who beat his rivals in the Presidium in June, sees the satellite as proof that socialism is winning.
The world beyond the race is restless. France fights in Algeria; Turkey masses troops on the Syrian border while Moscow threatens Ankara; Britain is leaving its empire after the humiliation of Suez, and Ghana and Malaya are newly free; the Hungarian rising was crushed a year ago; China shells Kinmen and Mao prepares his Great Leap. Every government now asks the same question: who goes into space next, and what will its rockets carry?