Editing Space Race (section)

==== US concerns and strategy ====
{{Further|Space policy of the United States}}
[[File:1957-10-07 New Moon.ogv|thumb|One of the first reports of Sputnik 1 by Universal Newsreel on October 7, 1957]]
Initially, President Eisenhower was worried that a satellite passing above a nation at over {{convert|100|km|mi|sp=us}} might be seen as violating that nation's airspace.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|p=8}} He was concerned that the Soviet Union would accuse the Americans of an illegal overflight, thereby scoring a propaganda victory at his expense.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|p=6}} Eisenhower and his advisors were of the opinion that a nation's airspace sovereignty did not extend past the [[Kármán line]], and they used the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year launches to establish this principle in international law.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|p=8}} Eisenhower also feared that he might cause an international incident and be called a "warmonger" if he were to use military missiles as launchers. Therefore, he selected the untried [[Naval Research Laboratory]]'s [[Vanguard rocket]], which was a research-only rocket.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|pp=15–18}} This meant that von Braun's team was not allowed to put a satellite into orbit with their Jupiter-C rocket, because of its intended use as a future military vehicle.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|pp=15–18}} On September 20, 1956, von Braun and his team did launch a Jupiter-C that was capable of putting a satellite into orbit, but the launch was used only as a suborbital test of reentry vehicle technology.{{sfn|Schefter|1999|pp=15–18}}