Sputnik: The beginnings of the space race

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a silver beach ball with extensions. It's Sputnik 1, the world's first satellite, launched by the USSR on October 4th 1957 to the shocked, amazed and terrified world. Come here the story of how it was made possible, fuelled by a fierce intellectual rivalry between a charismatic ex-Nazi and a former enemy of the Russian state, turned hero.