This technological advancement took the US and everyone by surprise. But the US was gonna catch up soon with their newly added programs for this reason. In Feburary of 1958, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aka DARPA was created.. Then in September of 1958, the Congress announcened the National Defense Education Act which was enacted to get more help and increase the numbers of scientists and engineers in the US so they can progress even further with new scientific discoveries.

Let's backtrack a bit. In the same year of 1958 all the creation of these companies made to embark on a journey started with the first US satellite launched and was successful on the day of Januaray 31st 1958. The Satellite was named Explorer 1, only around 3 months right after the Soviet Union. The purpose of Explorer 1 was to measure the radiation enviroment on Earths Orbit. It was 80 inches long and 6.25 inches in diameter. It entered Earths atmosphere and burned up on March 31st, 1970.