we have a good many talented scientists but we did not make an effort for many years and we're now behind and paying the price of having the soviet union exploit the propaganda advantage of sputnik as well as the flight of mr. gagarin. >> i have marvin kalb, cbs news correspondent, on the phone now. marvin, is there any doubt in your mind that this happened, that the russians put a man in space? >> i'm almost certain the russians did fire a man into outer space. his name is gagarin. he's 27. it's a great historic scientific feat. >> at that time, we didn't know whether a human could survive in space and here, boom, the soviets send this guy into space and he survived. >> yuri gagarin was something