In this episode we’re focussing on one of the most often talked about periods of the cold war, the Space Race.  More specifically we’re travelling back to the very start of it, with the launch of the first satellite - Sputnik One. 

This metal sphere, barely bigger than a beach ball, would not only spark a decades-long scientific arms race between the world's two biggest political powers, but would end up drastically affecting the place of Science and Technology in the modern world.

But how did this come to be?

Here to help us answer that question we have Roger Launius, the former chief historian for NASA and curator of the National Space Museum at the Smithsonian.