The inner turmoil that Hagen felt on “Sputnik Night,” as 4-5 October has come to be called, reverberated through the American public in the days that followed. Two generations after the event, words do not easily convey the American reaction to the Soviet satellite. The only appropriate characterization that begins to capture the mood on 5 October involves the use of the word hysteria. A collective mental turmoil and soul-searching followed, as American society thrashed around for the answers to Hagen’s questions. Almost immediately, two phrases entered the American lexicon to define time, “pre-Sputnik” and “post-Sputnik.” The other phrase that soon replaced earlier definitions of time was “Space Age.” With the launch of Sputnik 1, the Space Age had been born and the world would be different ever after.