Page 29 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

6 PELTON

seen as hopeful signs. Other new environmental, remote sensing, and meteorolog-
ical technologies also give new hope for a "new greening" of the planet another
generation or so hence. Yet environmentalists from the Club of Rome, the Sierra
Club, and other groups are not equally optimistic about the future. On both sides
of the environmental debate, satellites are peculiarly positioned to play a powerful
role. As one reads further into this book, one can find satellites represent a power-
ful technology whose force can be channeled in many directions.
For better or worse, satellite systems will continue to play a key part in redefin-
ing the political, scientific, cultural, and economic systems of the 21st century.
Here are some of the ways that satellites will define our future. These themes are
replayed and amplified in the chapters that follow.

SATELLITES AND GLOBALISM

Over the past decade, space activities have contributed nearly $1 trillion to the
global economy. Satellite communications represent about a third of that figure.
During 2003, satellite communications directly represented $40 billion in world-
wide revenues and nearly $75 billion in directly related economic activities. If one
looks beyond the role of satellites (in narrow terms of telecommunications) and
begins exploring the multiplier impact on the global economy, the overall impact
is vastly more important on our planet as a whole. For instance, a good percentage
of the world's hundreds of trillions of dollars in electronic funds transfer (EFT),
as reported by the World Bank for 2003, went via satellite. This stunning amount
represents a figure that is more than four times the global Gross National Product
(GNP) for all countries of the world—nearly a $100 trillion. Money in a service
economy circulates faster and faster and must do so to create an actual payoff that
can be measured as national economic productivity.
Satellites now beam down to us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week—a Niagara of
information, entertainment, and business transactions. This massive dump of data
is now accomplished by means of over 12,000 satellite video channels, produced
not only in Hollywood, but in Bollywood, India; Cairo, Egypt; and other film pro-
duction centers as well. Connectivity and electronic access around the world have
reshaped just about everything that defines business, cultural, and even religious
life in the Third Millennium. An evangelist or a pornographer can reach a billion
people "live via satellite."
The operation of communications satellites in today's society is now so perva-
sive that they have become invisible like electric motors or indoor plumbing, but
occasionally an event occurs that signals both their presence and importance. A
few years ago, a Panamsat Galaxy satellite (then owned by the Hughes Communi-
cations Company) covering much of the United States failed. That satellite was
carrying the video distribution for CNN News and the CNN Airport channel, and
thus many people were aware of the failure. Far more important, this satellite was