The event was so draped in secrecy that, despite its historic nature, no pictures were taken. But no one who was there—nor, for that matter, anyone else who heard of it—would ever forget the moment. With a blinding glare and a shuddering roar, the rocket lifted from its concrete pad and thundered into the early evening sky, soaring up and up and up until it was nothing more than a tiny glowing speck. On the plains of Kazakhstan, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union had just launched the first-ever spacecraft, its payload a 184-pound satellite called Sputnik.