script: 1957 Sputnik Launch

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from 
being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist 
superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in 
space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one 
scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite 
and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in 
the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second 
stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the 
founders of the Soviet space program.

In a series of interviews in recent days with The Associated Press, 
Chertok and other veterans told the little-known story of how Sputnik 
was launched, and what an unlikely achievement it turned out to be.

cont'd....
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jiPKFz4vTcKlCsEE4gmYdOaD8YRAD8S06IM00