Sputnik

Carsbie C. Adams.  Space Flight.  New York:  Mc-Graw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1958.

Launched in October 1957, this little device was a game changer. (Three months later, it dropped into the atmosphere and burned up.) Sputnik II was launched in November 1957 and carried the very first space animal, the dog Laika.  She only survived a couple of hours.  That primitive spaceship also dropped into the atmosphere and burned up after several months. 

"Sputnik" simply means "satellite" in Russian, but it was instrumental in coining the term "beatnik."