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A LITTLE PIECE OF SPACE HISTORY... Gale V. Highsmith & Sputnik IV.
I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At age 16 I had the good fortune of meeting a fellow Milwaukean by the name of Gale V. Highsmith. Mr. Highsmith, as I always called him, was an electrical engineer by training but had a deep passion for all forms of natural science. He studied and collected the things that fascinate young, curious minds: Indian axes, arrowheads, rocks, and fossils. I fondly remember making numerous visits to Mr. Highsmith's house where we would discuss diverse topics ranging from archaeology to geology (Mr. Highsmith was a leading expert on Wisconsin’s paleo-people and author of a book called The Fluted Axe). Our visits usually began after dinner, and our discussions would often continue into the early hours of the next morning. I learned that Mr. Highsmith lived an extraordinary life as a farmer, a star athlete, a WWII officer, a businessman, and an engineer. He had many fascinating stories to share about his experiences. He was a master storyteller and I always listened with keen interest. On one visit Mr. Highsmith related the story of a bright fireball and an odd chunk of metal that impacted a Sheboygan, Wisconsin road. The Launch of Sputnik IV... On May 15, 1960 Russian scientists launched a 5 ton spaceship known in the western world as Sputnik IV (the official Russian name is Korabl-Sputnik 1). It was the first satellite designed for the purpose of human spaceflight. This top secret satellite contained a pressurized cabin and life support equipment. Reports were widespread that the satellite also carried a life-sized "mannequin cosmonaut”. If such reports were correct, the mannequin must have been an ancestor to cosmonaut “Ivan Ivanovich”, a dummy that flew on subsequent Sputnik missions.
Unfortunately, the flight of Sputnik IV was doomed. Five days after launch, the rocket re-entry system was activated to bring Sputnik IV back to earth. A major malfunction caused the capsule to become incorrectly oriented...it drifted into space. Sputnik IV remained trapped in its unwanted orbit until September 5, 1962. The Wisconsin Fireball... Mr. Highsmith was a member of the MoonWatch Project, a group of amateur astronomers trained by the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory to assist NASA in the visual tracking of artificial satellites. On September 5, 1962 MoonWatch members across the nation were fixated on the sky: the orbit of Sputnik IV was decaying and a fiery entry into earth's atmosphere was expected. As a loyal MoonWatch observer, Mr. Highsmith assembled his theodolite on a hilltop near his home. He was unprepared for the spectacle he was about to witness: the sky was lit by a fireball of incredible intensity. The Mysterious Chunk of Metal...
The object was eventually turned over to Mr. Highsmith, who hand-delivered it to the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA. The metal chunk was studied, and metallographic tests confirmed that Sputnik IV had indeed crashed to Earth.
Satisfied that little cold-war intelligence could be gleaned from the metallic mass, America returned Sputnik IV to Russia. The Passing of a Friend... At age 18 I left Milwaukee to begin studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A sad phone call soon followed: Mr. Highsmith had passed away. Mr. Highsmith was in his 81st year, but his death seemed totally untimely. After decades of research Mr. Highsmith was nearing the completion of his "most monumental contribution"...a manuscript detailing a new interpretation of a widespread Indian artifact called an "atlattle". The book was never published, and I believe that a new and wonderful perspective is forever lost. |
