On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world by sending an artificial satellite, "Sputnik I,” into orbit around the Earth. This achievement was the first of its kind and followed the successful launch of a Soviet multistage intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) the previous August. It would be more than a year before the United States successfully tested an ICBM. Suggesting a higher level of Soviet technological development than previously assumed, Sputnik I and the Soviet ICBM cast doubt on a key assumption that had shaped U.S. national security policy since World War II—that America’s supremacy in science and technology gave it a decisive edge over the Soviet Union. Not since the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949 had the United States seemed so unprepared and vulnerable. According to James R. Killian, Jr., President Eisenhower’s assistant for science and technology, Sputnik I "created a crisis of confidence that swept the country like a windblown forest fire.”