Satellite Industry
When you watch the Olympics do you think of satellites? Maybe you should. For many years satellites have been televising sporting events such as the Olympic games, which popularized the phrase "live via satellite" and helped create a common impression of what commercial satellites do for us here on Earth. It was, in fact, a boxing match pitting Muhammad Ali ("The Greatest") against ("Smokin") Joe Frazier in 1975 when satellites were first used to broadcast a single sporting event to the entire world. While satellites still bring us sports, news, and entertainment programming from around the world each day, the commercial satellite industry can and will do much, much more—from delivering high-speed Internet content to taking pictures from space of objects on Earth that are as small as a soccer ball.
Historical Development of the Industry
While you are probably familiar with movies such as Apollo 13 (1995) and The Right Stuff (1983), which chronicled the beginnings of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its civilian space program, you probably did not know that the commercial satellite industry actually developed right alongside the government space program in the early 1960s. The satellite industry got kick-started back in July 1962, when scientists at AT&T Bell Laboratories decided to build the world's first commercial satellite, dubbed Telstar, after losing a competition for NASA's active satellite program.
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 2,641 words (approx. 9 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Satellite Industry Access Pass.
