China says it launched a spacecraft and not a missile 0:50
(CNN) -
"Listen now to the sound that forever separates the old from the new."
This is how NBC radio presented the signal from the first satellite in space, on October 4, 1957. But it was not a triumph of American science: the sound came from the Sputnik of the Soviet Union, a piece the size of a balloon beach whose launch surprised the world, and the United States in particular.
The phrase "Sputnik moment" was coined to mark the moment.
It signified the shock of the loss of a presumed superiority, the technological leap of a rival that could break the balance of nuclear power.
Then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower said he was not "worried one iota" about Sputnik, but public and political reaction in the United States was less optimistic.
"Russian science has beaten American science," shouted the Boston Globe.
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Last week, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley recalled the "Sputnik moment" when speaking of China's testing of one or more hypersonic missiles this summer.
"What we saw was a very significant event from a hypersonic weapons system test. And it's very concerning," Milley said.
"I don't know if it's a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that."
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China says it has done nothing more than launch a reusable space vehicle, and based on these tests alone, determining its intentions is difficult.
But China has invested massively in space and missile capabilities in recent years, while developing conventional forces and cyberwarfare.
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In terms of national security, surprises and the inability to assess a threat are what keep top brass at ease.
Sputnik briefly checked both boxes.
China's rapid development of hypersonic technology may be of another order.
In the years after Sputnik, the United States quickly surpassed the Soviet Union in space and satellite technology.
NASA was created in 1958 (and flew the first hypersonic test vehicle in 1959).
In 1960, the United States had three times more satellites in orbit than the USSR.
Parity was restored, despite some setbacks along the way.
The first American response to Sputnik exploded on launch;
the test of a hypersonic vehicle in October failed.
So little is known about the Chinese program that it is almost impossible to assess whether a larger gap has been opened.
Intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence committee in private briefings that the Chinese test marked a substantial advance in that country's ability to launch a first strategic attack against the United States, according to people familiar with the briefings.
Other officials and experts are not as concerned about the missile test, claiming that - although it was intended to be provocative - the technology does not give Beijing an advantage and is therefore not destabilizing.
The technology itself is not new: the United States, China, Russia and other countries have been working on it for decades.
Russia is developing a range of hypersonic weapons that President Vladimir Putin has boasted of being "invincible."
If a power were to decisively take the lead in weaponizing hypersonic technology, that would be destabilizing.
Low altitude agility
Hypersonic missiles are not as fast as ballistic missiles - although five times the speed of sound they are not far behind - but they travel low and are maneuverable.
They may be able to change targets during flight and are therefore difficult to detect and intercept.
A RAND report in 2017 noted that even "defenders with capable ground and space sensors will have only a few minutes to know that these missiles are on their way."
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If an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) were fired at a US target, approximately 25 minutes would elapse between detection and impact.
Some analysts estimate that if a hypersonic weapon were used, that delay would be only 6 minutes.
To protect the continental United States from a hypersonic arsenal, an unaffordable number of high-rise defenses would be needed.
And that means much better defenses than the current ones.
In addition, American anti-missile systems are focused on the northern hemisphere: a highly maneuverable hypersonic missile in low orbit could be directed over the South Pole.
Some experts point out that the era of hypersonic missiles is, for now, more theoretical than real: a lot of engineering is still needed.
Satellite images appear to show that China is making significant progress in potentially launching nuclear weapons.
Ivan Oelrich, former vice president of the Federation of American Scientists, argues that "hypersonic weapons will add some new military capabilities, but they will not revolutionize warfare."
But the RAND report, written in 2017, estimated that there was "at most a decade before hypersonic missiles are militarily significant."
Sputnik's soul-searching
The original moment of Sputnik triggered a good soul-searching in America.
Critics considered that the United States had been slow to recognize and respond to the Soviets' ambition to be first in space.
Both Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, then US senators, used the Sputnik moment to criticize America's unpreparedness.
Johnson warned that the Soviet Union would be able to bombard the United States with nuclear warheads like children throwing stones from an overpass.
Likewise, today some critics say the United States has been slow to recognize the threat.
"The Pentagon has not been effective in articulating the need for hypersonic weapons or managing their development," says Andrew Senesac of the National Defense Industrial Association.
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Sputnik stimulated spending on science education: the National Defense Education Law was passed in 1958.
It remains to be seen whether the rapid build-up of Chinese capabilities will inspire similar investment in the United States.
Sputnik also spurred huge investment in satellite technology in both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Humanity has benefited from its civil applications - GPS, telecommunications - but until 1990 about four out of every five satellites in space were military.
At present, hypersonic technology is being developed in Australia and Europe for commercial and peaceful applications.
But much of that technology could have military value.
Arms control and defense after Sputnik
The Sputnik timing was important in two other ways.
The risk that space could upset the military balance eventually ushered in an era of arms control agreements, as nuclear-armed ballistic missiles had the potential to wipe out an adversary.
Satellites became an important part of the early warning systems that allowed humanity to live with "mutual assured destruction."
But the specter of obliteration also sparked research into missile defenses - how to intercept and destroy incoming missiles, an effort that reached its zenith with President Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program in the 1980s.
China's advances may overheat the choice: between exploring ways to defend against nuclear-armed and hypersonic missiles and trying to match the offensive capabilities of China and Russia.
Missile defenses have a checkered history.
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James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says the United States "should offer to negotiate new limits on missile defenses, which it would only agree to if China and Russia offered very significant concessions in return."
A major study by the RAND Corporation came to the same conclusion.
"The inescapable requirement is that the United States, Russia and China agree on a non-proliferation policy," the authors said.
This could - potentially - usher in a new chapter in nuclear deterrence, as some argue Sputnik did.
There is an important caveat.
In the decade after Sputnik, the US and the Soviet Union developed communication channels to try to ensure that the conflict was not started by miscalculation.
Today, there are few such channels with China, which is problematic when so many platforms can carry conventional or nuclear warheads.
Money and knowledge
An unsurprising similarity to the Sputnik moment is the way these basins drive big spending.
The Pentagon's budget for hypersonic R&D will increase next year, to $ 3.8 billion.
In October, Raytheon Technologies CEO Gregory Hayes said the United States was "at least several years behind" China in developing hypersonic technology.
Fareed Zakharia, in The Washington Post, says that "raising the fear of a huge, tech-savvy enemy is a sure way to secure vast new budgets that can be spent to counter every enemy move, real or imagined."
"Real or imaginary" is part of the problem when it comes to hypersonic weapons.
Borrowing the phrase from former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "There are things that we know that we know. We also know that there are things that are unknown. That is, we know that there are things that we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, those that we do not know. We do not know".
And, as he said later, "they are the ones who catch you."
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