A Non-Soviet Sputnik Crisis?

Supposing for the sake of argument that rather than the Soviet Union it was a Western country such as Canada, the UK, France, or similar which was the first country to put an artificial satellite into orbit by surprise a month or so ahead of the Sputnik's launch what do people think the US' reaction is likely to be? In our timeline you had the Sputnik crisis, in large part fuelled by a cynical media for their own ends, and even then it appeared to be the government getting more worked up about it than the public. Here however whilst it will still be a shock to be beaten into orbit it will be by either a friendly or at least somewhat friendly Western nation, at least until the Soviets launch Sputnik a month afterwards. Even with the implications of the rocket that carried Sputnik into orbit and it potentially pointing towards the end of the US' geographical security behind two oceans would the media still be able to try and whip up a panic if it's not quite old news but not the breakthrough it was in our timeline?
 
Supposing for the sake of argument that rather than the Soviet Union it was a Western country such as Canada, the UK, France, or similar which was the first country to put an artificial satellite into orbit by surprise ...

I don't think there's any chance of any country other than a closed, total state such as the USSR making a surprise launch of a satellite. The US space program was entirely public at this time; everyone knew that the US was working toward launching a satellite.

(There was a military missile development program, but President Eisenhower directed that the first satellite be launched with a non-military booster. I don't know how much of the military program was classified.)

If Canada, Britain, France, or whoever had a comparable rocketry program, it would have been public knowledge. The Soviet program was not public, and though it was known to US intelligence, its level of progress was not known.
 
I don't think there's any chance of any country other than a closed, total state such as the USSR making a surprise launch of a satellite. The US space program was entirely public at this time; everyone knew that the US was working toward launching a satellite.

(There was a military missile development program, but President Eisenhower directed that the first satellite be launched with a non-military booster. I don't know how much of the military program was classified.)

If Canada, Britain, France, or whoever had a comparable rocketry program, it would have been public knowledge. The Soviet program was not public, and though it was known to US intelligence, its level of progress was not known.

Canada could probably surprise people by them having just forgotten about us.:p
 
Canada could probably surprise people by them having just forgotten about us.:p

The Soviet mole working on the project would have informed his KGB contact, and then, the mole in the KGB would have informed his CIA contact, and boom, there you go. The Americam military-industrial complex would put pressure on the American government, which would put pressure on the Canadian government, and we'd cancel it, and destroy the remains.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Supposing for the sake of argument that rather than the Soviet Union it was a Western country such as Canada, the UK, France, or similar which was the first country to put an artificial satellite into orbit by surprise a month or so ahead of the Sputnik's launch what do people think the US' reaction is likely to be? In our timeline you had the Sputnik crisis, in large part fuelled by a cynical media for their own ends, and even then it appeared to be the government getting more worked up about it than the public. Here however whilst it will still be a shock to be beaten into orbit it will be by either a friendly or at least somewhat friendly Western nation, at least until the Soviets launch Sputnik a month afterwards. Even with the implications of the rocket that carried Sputnik into orbit and it potentially pointing towards the end of the US' geographical security behind two oceans would the media still be able to try and whip up a panic if it's not quite old news but not the breakthrough it was in our timeline?

The British were the first to field commercial nuclear energy, and the Soviets were closely following them at the time. The National Security Council was concerned enough that it declared losing the nuclear energy race to be more devastating to American interests than the Soviet nuclear weapons program, and it ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to field commercial nuclear energy as soon as possible. The AEC actually wanted to wait until the 1970s or 1980s to field the first nuclear power stations, but the NSC forced them to do it in 1957 at Shippingport.

The same thing happened when the British and French launched the Concorde Program in the early 1960s, with the Soviets following behind. This led the United States to launch a program to develop its own SST, with the federal government financing 75% of the development costs of the winning design. The Boeing 2707 won the design competition, and although the program was ultimately canceled it still shows how far the United States was willing to go to have American companies secure market share in emerging industries.

I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen with space technology.
 
I don't think there's any chance of any country other than a closed, total state such as the USSR making a surprise launch of a satellite. The US space program was entirely public at this time; everyone knew that the US was working toward launching a satellite.
I wasn't so much thinking of a completely secret programme since as you say outside of closed societies it would be widely known which countries were carrying out rocketry programmes and research, more that they simply keep it quiet quite how far they're along with things so that it's a surprise if and when they put a satellite into orbit.
 
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