Page 63 - Communications Satellites Global Change Agents

2. EVOLUTION OF SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY 39

control. In his policy statement, President Eisenhower essentially outlined an in-
dustry-led initiative.
Eisenhower stated,

The world's requirements for communications facilities will increase several-fold
during the next decade and communications satellites promise the most economical
and effective means of satisfying these requirements. . .. This nation has tradition-
ally followed a policy of conducting international telephone, telegraph and other
communications services through private enterprise subject to Governmental licens-
ing and regulation .. . accordingly the Government should aggressively encourage
private enterprise in the establishment and operation of satellite relays for revenue-
producing purposes. (Logsdon et al., 1998, p. 42)

Shortly after his election, John F. Kennedy made his famous space speech, in
which he set the goal of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely back
to Earth within the next decade. This speech led to the Mercury, Gemini, and
Apollo Programs and the actual moon-landing mission by Neil Armstrong, Buzz
Aldrin, and Michael Collins in July 1969 and is well remembered. Yet at the same
time Kennedy likewise set a goal of creating a global organization to establish a
communications satellite system "that would benefit all countries, promote world
peace and allow non-discriminating access for countries of the world" (Logsdon
et al., 1998, p. 42).
These concepts about a global satellite organization were reiterated by JFK in
September 1961 in a speech to the United Nations that resulted in a UN General
Assembly Resolution known as Res. 1721 P. These Kennedy speeches and the
UN Resolution served to move the objectives of establishing a communications
satellite system from a mere commercial enterprise to a higher purpose of political
and economic equity and world peace. This was not to be a technology developed
for commercial profit, but a revolutionary force for global development. In the
years that followed, both humanitarian and practical objectives were actively pur-
sued as Comsat and Intelsat were formed.
Whereas Eisenhower and the large communications companies such as
AT&T, ITT, RCA, Western Union, and Western Union International were think-
ing in terms of satellite systems for commercial operations and the generation of
new business revenues derived from telephone, telex, telegraph, and even TV re-
lay, Kennedy took a different approach. His initiative implied a role for govern-
ment and tied communications satellite systems to economic development and
political objectives.
Kennedy declared his political goals for communications satellites via a global
network as the furtherance of world peace, and he had these concepts endorsed by
the General Assembly of the UN. This changed the perspective of how the tech-
nology would be developed in the United States and indeed set up a source of con-