The Sputnik Crisis occurred in 1957 with the launch of the first satellite on a modified R-7 Semyorka ballistic missile from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR.
PS-1 83.64 kg8K71PS 400,000 kg thrust
On the first 2 tests of the R-7 on 15 May & 11 June 1957 technical difficulties were encountered; the 3rd test on 21 August 1957 was successful.
The United States President subsequently created the following entities.
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) est. February 1958 (renamed DARPA in 1972), the latter from which resulted our modern Internet.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) est. July 1958
National Defense Education Act (NDEA) est. September 1958
On 1 May 1960 an S-75 missile brought down a U-2 spy-plane overflying the U.S.S.R.
There has been some speculation as to whether the KGB and CIA had exchanged information on ICBM and U-2 technical specifications, the Americans also providing information on the wherabouts in Munich of Stepan Bandera, as the radar technician for the U-2 program, Lee Harvey Oswald (later accused of the assassination of Pres. Kennedy), had crossed the Finnish-Soviet border on 15 Oct. 1959, the day Bandera was killed in Munich.