Messengers in space;

              Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world...
To sail beyond the sunset,
and the paths of all the western stars...
ULYSSES/Alfred, Lord Tennyson
ES5EHIBHH IN 5PdCE
By JOSEPH KRAEMER/Senior Consultant, Washington, D.C.
The U.S. space program officially began in October, 1958, when the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created.
Eleven years later NASA put a man on the moon, and seven years after
that a miniaturized laboratory was landed on Mars. These events were
the high points in a series of accomplishments in space which spanned
two decades. During that time, there were moments of national anxiety
as countdowns wound to their fiery conclusions and moments of
national pride when missions were completed without loss of life. The
space program also provided moon rocks, Tang, former astronauts who
are now celebrities, and a cape in Florida which has become a tourist
attraction. Paradoxically, now that the space program no longer
commands the attention and national resources it once did, the benefits
of that program have begun to be evident in the field of
communications.
The Background
In October, 1945, in the obscure British journal Wireless World, a writer
named Arthur Clarke suggested that a space satellite positioned
approximately 22,000 miles above the equator could act as a radio relay
point from which service could be provided to one-third of the earth's
surface. At that altitude, Clarke pointed out, it would take the satellite 24
hours to orbit the earth. Since that is the length of time necessary for the
earth to complete one full rotation on its axis, the satellite would appear
to be in a fixed position relative to the ground. As such, the satellite
would be available to receive radio signals from an earthbound
transmitter and to relay these signals to one or more receivers on earth.