A dog knocks a goat out of the news?

I was rewatching History Channel's ``Sputnik Mania'', which I
quite like for its ``Victory At Sea''-like habit of just showing old
footage with nice long cuts without excessive narrating or contemporary
commentary, and noticed something odd as the storyline got to Sputnik 2:

The newscaster reported on the launch of Laika that a dog had
knocked a goat off the front page. So what goat was that? Was this an
actual goat that'd achieved human-interest status at the time, or was
it a metaphorical goat of the United States rocket program not really
working out so well as might be desired?

(I have the suspicion this may be addressed by Matthew Bille and
Erika Lishock's _The First Space Race_, but I haven't got a copy of it.)

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Dec 14, 9:01*pm, (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
* * * * I was rewatching History Channel's ``Sputnik Mania'', which I
quite like for its ``Victory At Sea''-like habit of just showing old
footage with nice long cuts without excessive narrating or contemporary
commentary, and noticed something odd as the storyline got to Sputnik 2:

* * * * The newscaster reported on the launch of Laika that a dog had
knocked a goat off the front page. *So what goat was that? *Was this an
actual goat that'd achieved human-interest status at the time, or was
it a metaphorical goat of the United States rocket program not really
working out so well as might be desired? *

* * * * (I have the suspicion this may be addressed by Matthew Bille and
Erika Lishock's _The First Space Race_, but I haven't got a copy of it.) *

--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Joseph Nebus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

I'm afraid we missed that item. This is the first mention I'd heard
of the goat.

Regards,

Matt Bille

On 14 Dec 2008 23:01:27 -0500, (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

The newscaster reported on the launch of Laika that a dog had
knocked a goat off the front page. So what goat was that?

....I dunno. Who had Dorothy Killgallen attacked the day before?

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Matt writes:

On Dec 14, 9:01=A0pm, (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 The newscaster reported on the launch of Laika that a dog=
had
knocked a goat off the front page. =A0So what goat was that?

I'm afraid we missed that item. This is the first mention I'd heard
of the goat.

Hm. All right. Well, so that there's a record of it which
can't be retrieved from Google Groups after the special has expired from
the Tivo:

The clip starts out with the text ``SPECIAL REPORT'', on
black background, with the announcer introducing:

NBC News presents a special report on the Russian
launching of a second Earth satellite.

[ Switch to an ``NBC News'' logo superimposed on Sputnik image. ]

Now to guide this report, here in New York is NBC news
commentator Merril Mueller.

[ Switch to Mueller ]

Good afternoon. A dog knocked a goat right out of the
world's attention today. In a masterpiece of propaganda timing,
the Soviet Union announced it had lunched Sputnik number two,
carrying a live dog. This is reportedly history's first space
traveller.


A quick search of The New York Times archive from October and
early November 1957 doesn't turn up anything featuring the word `goat'
that doesn't seem to be about sports results or travel reports, but I
can't say it'd be surprising if a human-interest or novelty story did
not make it into the paper to start with or into the search database
yet. I had a hard enough time figuring when syndicated _Star Trek_
reruns began airing in New York City.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 14 Dec 2008 23:01:27 -0500, (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

The newscaster reported on the launch of Laika that a dog had
knocked a goat off the front page. So what goat was that? Was this an
actual goat that'd achieved human-interest status at the time, or was
it a metaphorical goat of the United States rocket program not really
working out so well as might be desired?

Navy won the Army-Navy Game in an upset?

Mary "Surely I'm not the only football fan here."
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
or
Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/

On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:17:50 -0800, "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary
Shafer)" wrote:

Navy won the Army-Navy Game in an upset?

#8 Navy, which won the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, 14-0, finished
with an 8-1-1 record, a bid to meet Rice in the Cotton Bowl, and a
fifth place finish in the final poll. However. this happened about two
weeks after Sputnik II's mission was finished, on Thanksgiving Day.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote:
Navy won the Army-Navy Game in an upset?

Mary "Surely I'm not the only football fan here."


I found one odd thing that happened on November 2-3rd in 1957:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_Case

Pat