The Department of Microbiology and the Peace Studies Program brought a speaker to Cornell on Wednesday whose background may have incited prejudice and discomfort just a few decades ago. Dr. Guennady Lepioshkin, now of the Scientific Research Institute for Environmental Monitoring, was once a bioweapons scientist for the Soviet Union.

MOSCOW (AP) — When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.