Question

What were some Americans afraid of as a result of the Soviet Sputnik launch?
that the Soviet Union would start to colonize space

that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union

that the United States would go to war with the Soviet Union

Answer 1

Answer:

that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union

Explanation:

Answer 2

Answer:

Option b - The United States was falling behind the Soviet Union.

Explanation:

• Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union on 4th October 1957 into an elliptical low Earth orbit.

• It was the first artificial Earth satellite.    
• With The launch of crude, kerosene-powered Sputnik, the space race was underway. The Soviets had won first place, whereas the United States was agog and lost their confidence.
• There was a crisis of confidence in American values, politics, technology, and the military.
• The Sputnik soviet created a perception of American complacency and weakness, and a missile gap.
• This "missile gap" led to many resignations of key military figures, bitter accusations.
• This contributed to the election of John F.Kennedy.    
• Engineering, technology, and science were totally reworked. In the shadow of Sputnik, they were massively funded.
• The Russian satellite forced the US to place a priority on research science, this led to the development of microelectronics.
• Sputnik actually accelerated the pace of applied research due to which a laptop, personal computers, the internet, etc are developed.  

Hence, the Soviet Sputnik lauch made the US believe that they were behind in the space race.