October Sky

OCTOBER CAN BE LONELY on the plains of Montana. Temperatures might reach sixty degrees Fahrenheit during the day, but they fall fast at sunset, to freezing and below. The wind can be biting. And US Route 12 on the long eastbound stretch between Missoula and Helena is not the place you want to pull to the side of the road. Even during daylight, there's not much to see, except scrub, clusters of pines, low rounded hills. Unless you're looking at the sky.

It is Sunday, October 6, 1957, early evening. A 1955 Oldsmobile sits by the eastbound side of the highway. There are pockets of early snow on the darkened dirt to either side, but there's no traffic beyond the odd slow-moving semi or pickup truck. A young man leans against the driver's side, staring to the west. He is short and slim with dark hair and is wearing blue slacks and a Windbreaker. The clothing is not suited to the weather. His name is George Abbey; he is a first lieutenant in the US Air Force, a helicopter instructor at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio. He is driving back to Texas from his hometown of Seattle, where he was visiting family. It's a trip he's made from one starting point or another many times.

Just a few years earlier Abbey was a midshipman at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, coming off the summer cruise with thirty days' leave and three whole dollars a month spending money. In those days, his travel options were military transport (great if it was going where you wanted when you needed it) or family funds (not available). So Abbey and his roommate, Gordon Iver "Gordy" Dahl, another Seattle boy, found a third method: Knowing that car dealers in Detroit were eager to sell used vehicles in Seattle, the pair hitchhiked to Michigan, took a car, and headed out on US Route 12 to Chicago, then across Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, and Idaho into Washington State. Gas was covered; the trip was free, costing them only their time.

Now, three and a half years after graduating from Annapolis, Abbey is a married man with a car of his own. Between his basic officer's salary plus flight pay, he is pulling down $400 a month. Life is better.

But Seattle remains a frequent destination. Abbey's parents still live there, and so do two of his three brothers and a sister. Abbey has grown to love the long drive from Texas north to Wyoming, then west across Montana, and back. A fan of Western movies, especially John Ford's, Abbey likes the bleak scenery and the famous Big Sky. Especially on this particular evening. Tonight, Montana's Big Sky will allow Lieutenant Abbey a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — to see the flight of an astronomical object by the name of Sputnik, the Earth's first artificial orbiting satellite.

Abbey has always had an interest in space travel, the happy result of a youth spent reading Buck Rogers comics and watching Flash Gordon movie serials. He also knows that the United States is preparing to launch a small scientific satellite named Vanguard. But the news that broke the day before, as he was driving across western Washington State, has shocked him. The Soviet Union, the Red Communist enemy halfway around the world, fired a giant rocket from some mystery location in central Asia, putting Sputnik into orbit. As the miles passed, Abbey heard more details: Sputnik was a silvery sphere twenty-three inches in diameter and weighing 184 pounds, small enough to fit inside the trunk of his Olds — though the Soviet satellite is a giant compared to the planned three-pound Vanguard. Sputnik is circling the Earth every ninety-two minutes at an altitude ranging from a low point of 139 miles to a high of 900, flying as far north as Alaska and Greenland and as far south as Antarctica. It emits a beep that has been tracked all over the world.

Abbey knows what this accomplishment implies: the Soviets do indeed possess the giant rockets they bragged about earlier in the year, missiles capable of flinging H-bombs over the North Pole to blow up New York and Washington, DC. As a cold warrior, he's troubled. But, as a pilot and Buck Rogers fan, he's also fascinated. Hearing on the radio earlier this day that Sputnik might be visible to Montana residents this very night, Abbey has pulled off the road to see.

He glances at his watch —

And there's Sputnik, moving swiftly from northwest to southeast, a small, bright dot. Abbey has seen shooting stars before, but this is different. Shooting stars vanish in a second or less ... This light in the October sky remains steady. A satellite! He is stunned by the sight of it — and surprised by the depth of his reaction, feeling a bit like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. He has grown up with rockets, seen newsreel footage of German V-2s rising to incredible altitudes over New Mexico. He knows about the V-2's descendant, the Redstone, and its rival cousin, the Atlas. But it isn't until this moment that he connects them all — satellites, rockets, high-speed aircraft. The chance to see Earth from orbit, to walk on the Moon, to visit Mars. The Space Age is no longer that thing-to-come — it's here. If the navy and aviation are in George Abbey's blood, his bones are space and rocketry.

He gets back in his car. Texas is still many hours away.

The Abbeys

ABBEY'S PARENTS, Sam and Brenta, met on a London double-decker...