Back in the mid forties, (that's the 1940's) a science fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke - you may remember one of his more famous stories, "2001" - wrote a short story which included the use of an orbiting communications platform. Clarke's platform was manned, since while he foresaw the use of orbiting broadcast satellites, he missed the computer revolution completely. Most of his contemporaries missed it, too.
Clarke had operators recording programs on tape, and replaying them when they passed over a particular area of the earth. The action of the story revolved around one country trying to prevent another from broadcasting programs while over its territory.
All of the story would have been made moot by use of computers - there would have been no-one on board, so no spies or intrigue. I suppose he could have had the action take place in the ground station, but that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting.
Another thing he missed was the capability of a network of synchronous satellites to broadcast the same material to the entire earth simultaneously. Later authors jumped on this - and we see it in reality today. Is there anyone who hasn't heard of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the demonstrations in Bahrain, Iran and Yemen? This would have been impossible a few years ago in places where the news is censored.
By the way, Clarke actually got a patent on communications satellites! Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the rest of us, he was unable to enforce it.
Next time, I will discuss the influence of the Dick Tracy comic strip on our technology and our very lives.
John Pierce invented the first communications satellite. In 1936, Pierce joined Bell Telephone Laboratories and helped develop the traveling wave tube, an amplifier that facilitates satellite communication. He then began advocating the use of unmanned passive and active communication satellites, eventually convincing NASA to build a satellite based on his design. In 1960, NASA launched Echo 1, an aluminum-coated balloon that was 100-feet in diameter and bounced radio waves from one ground-based station to another. Following the success of Echo 1, Telstar 1 was launched in 1962. This first commercial communications satellite was in low-orbit and transmitted the first live television signals across the Atlantic.
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