Page 43 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

1. SATELLITES AS WORLDWIDE CHANGE AGENTS 19

terms of the organization of the human bio and political systems, life is funda-
mentally different today than it was at the dawn of the space age less than a half
century ago.

SATELLITES AND NEW PATTERNS OF WORLD LIVING

Human civilization has changed in significant ways from the days when we at-
tempted to launch the first tiny artificial communications satellites in the early
1960s. The first steps came quickly with the launch of Score (1958), Courier
(1960), Telstar (1962), Relay (1962), Syncom (1963), and the world's first com-
mercial communications satellite (spring 1965). Today's largest and most power-
ful satellites are some 10,000 times more capable than the first small satellites of
the mid-1960s in terms of performance and lifetime. The first operational satellite
resembled a largish 80-pound coffee can with a pipe sticking out the top. It
showed little commonality with today's monster satellites, with a wingspan of
some 100 feet (about 30 meters). Contemporary satellites include huge, high-gain
antennas that are some 40 feet in diameter (i.e., 12 meters across). The history of
this technology and how it happened is told in greater detail in chapter 2.
The most important thing to know is that the story of communications satellites
and the development of new and exciting technology is far from over. The Japa-
nese experimental satellite—the ETS VIII—will soon deploy a huge antenna that
is 17 meters by 19 meters in size. The next three decades will likely produce satel-
lite designs that are radically different from the golden boxes from which protrude
solar panel wings, considered the latest in technology today. In later chapters, we
discuss and show concepts of the possible designs of the future. The most impres-
sive designs for the future, however, may not be the satellites in the skies, but the
tiny broadband communications, computing, and navigational devices that we
can wear on the wrist or perhaps even implant in our bodies.
When it comes to identifying global change agents, satellites and other related
media have much to brag about. Yet satellite system designers and operators from
DirecTV to Astra and from Intelsat to Panamsat have a good deal to be concerned
about as well. The technology that brought us the potential for worldwide educa-
tion and health care, as well as electronic diplomacy and unprecedented economic
growth, also spawned global MTV, Cinemax, the "Gong Show," "Baywatch,"
and nonstop game shows and commercials. Communications and navigational
satellites can also be powerful instruments of war that ensure that "smart bombs"
are delivered to their targets with deadly accuracy. In short, the communications
satellite can be seen as a mixed blessing; satellite systems can instantaneously
bring us the ravages of war as easily as nudity and violence. These capabilities,
the result of a free and open society, are a concern to an astonished and often out-
raged global audience. Satellites have certainly forced us to view our expanding
space capability with everything from glee to horror.