Sputnik

On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, a metal sphere that beeps on a radio frequency as it orbits. It does no other job. The shock is that a rocket can place a machine in orbit and the machine can be heard from the ground.

The contribution is orbital infrastructure. Communication satellites, weather satellites, GPS, and space telescopes are all descendants. None of them are possible if you cannot reach orbit and talk to the machine. The US response also pours money into science education and into rockets, which is the context for the Moon landing twelve years later.

Sputnik is not a computer and not a robot. Its radio is the 1901 idea, its rocket is a guided missile. The new fact is the altitude and the speed that keep it falling around Earth instead of back down.

The beep lasted weeks. The political effect lasted longer than the satellite.