Sixty years ago in 1967 I was in the junior class at Bay High School in Bay St. Louis, MS. The science fair was coming up, so I decided to do a research project on communications satellites. They were not only relatively new at that point in history, but few people knew they even existed.
A new company was formed in 1962 called the Communications Satellite Corporation of America, COMSAT for short. It was authorized by Congress to research, develop and launch communications satellites for government and commercial purposes. You know where that went. Today every aspect of our lives is touched in some way by satellites, from weather forecasting to GPS location devices, to internet services.
In 1964 seventeen other countries joined Comsat to form the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (Intelsat) for the purpose of establishing a global commercial communications network. Comsat launched a series of communications satellites, beginning with Early Bird in 1965. It also developed other advanced communications satellites for service within the United States.
Anyway, I wrote to COMSAT and asked them to send me a packet of information about their company. Boy, did they send me a packet. It arrived in time for me to condense it all into a couple of informational display boards for the science fair, with dozens of full color pictures, diagrams, and handouts about the coming era of unearthly communications ( that is, via satellite.)
I don't think I won any prizes that year, but it was quite a learning experience. I was aware even back then of the coming importance satellites would be playing in mass media, corporate communications, and even home entertainment. Remember those giant six foot diameter satellite antennas in some people's yards?
