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stress on trade in services than in goods and products. It is also the story of Europe
and its desire to become a space power and to use satellites to meet its social and
economic needs. It is a story of how Japan and Australia have often been the voice
of reason, compromise, and plain old good common sense when issues of global
satellite power politics have emerged.
It is a story of how the USSR used satellites as a key element of cold war
power and influence, sometimes with great effect and sometimes with less than
the desired results. All the economically developed countries of the OECD—
from Japan, to Canada, to Australia and New Zealand, to Europe—have played
roles in satellite system development. Also the developing countries have effec-
tively used satellites to reach isolated populations and escape from the
neocolonialist impact that traditional lines of communications imposed
throughout the first half of the 20th century and beyond. There are few technolo-
gies that have had such a pervasive impact around the world. When CNN pro-
duced the satellite-delivered program called the "Day of Five Billion" a little
over a decade ago, there was virtually no political entity across the planet that
did not play a role, and over 150 countries aired the program. Nearly 80 coun-
tries produced some segment of this remarkable program that recognized the
significance of the continuing rapid growth of humanity globally. It also demon-
strated that more than 200 countries and territories around the world have a
vested interest in satellite networks.

CONCLUSIONS
This book is an interrelated and integrated group of chapters that address satellite
systems and their impact on the world. These chapters address satellite technol-
ogy, satellite business and economics, satellites and global politics and regulation,
satellites and social services, and even satellites and the future. The attempt is thus
to tell the story of satellites from different perspectives and via different disci-
plines. Too often the world of satellite technology is severed from its social, eco-
nomic, cultural, and political impacts.
We hope that the reader will first see the satellite story in terms of technology
development—past, present, and future. Then it moves to satellite history and reg-
ulation. Next, the book morphs into other stories about global business, global TV
news, entertainment, and sports—about the many ways satellites have altered our
world.
The 12,000 satellite video channels around the world today bring us news, en-
tertainment, the Olympics, and even wars "live via satellite." The Iraq "regime
change" of 2003 was the most televised war in history—it was truly "live via sat-
ellite."
One of the many stories in this book is that of satellites, the Internet, and the
electronic systems we call cyberspace. In truth, without satellites, the Internet
would not yet have become the global phenomena that it is today. Finally, this book