Our resident humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson sees a clear connection between the recent flap over spy balloons and the cold war stunt called Sputnik. As the American people decide whether to panic, assign blame or shrug at the violation of American airspace by a handful of strange objects, one of them certainly a Chinese spy balloon, it may be useful to look back to a previous moment of national space panic.

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Additional audio courtesy of CNN, Sunrise Recordings, Mark Fellow Productions, Max's Models and British Pathe.