The mid-1950s was a time marked by both scientific and political fervor. The eighteen-month period between July 1, 1957, and December 31, 1958, was known as the International Geophysical Year (IGY). During this period, international cooperation in science peaked. More than ten thousand scientists and technicians representing sixty-seven countries participated in a multitude of cooperative research programs and activities aimed at gathering data about Earth, its atmosphere, and the Sun. Both the United States and the Soviet Union (present-day Russia) used the focus on upper-atmosphere research during the IGY to develop orbiting artificial satellites. Out of this focus would come each country's eventual space program.

While there was cooperation in the scientific world, there was conflict in the political one. World politics was dominated by the differing political ideologies (set of doctrines or beliefs) of the democratic, capitalist United States and the Communist Soviet Union. The mistrust...