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Most accounts of the "space race" between the Soviet Union and the United States begin with the 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which panicked Americans into believing they had lost their technological (and thus military) edge over their cold war adversary. President Dwight Eisenhower's staid response failed to calm their fears; instead, it left many convinced that their avuncular but technologically naive commander in chief did not fully comprehend the strategic importance of outer space. Many authors treat Eisenhower's space policies of the late 1950s similarly, as little more than a reactive and reluctant prologue to the more ambitious and deliberate agenda pursued by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in the 1960s: human spaceflight leading to the Apollo Moon landings.
In The Other Space Race, historian Nicholas Michael Sambaluk argues that Eisenhower in fact created a coherent, long-term space policy that was firmly grounded in national defense. However, the president's low-key leadership style, which served him well throughout his first term, ultimately worked against him as public confidence eroded in the wake of Sputnik. Long before the Sputnik crisis, Eisenhower focused on developing unmanned (and unarmed) reconnaissance...