Telstar... Personal Recollections
"The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media--movies, Telstar, flight--far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage."
- Marshall McLuhan -
Ever had an old memory suddenly trigger?
It happened to me today. I stumbled across a YouTube video of the recent SpaceX launch of Telstar 19, and a memory flood was unleashed.
A recent Telstar launch.
Courtesy of YouTube and SpaceX
Telstar!
Telstar is the magic word that triggered my recollections, taking me briefly back to 1962 when the original Telstar communications satellite was launched.
My parents had moved us to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands on the rather memorable date of my 12th birthday. It was late in the year, and I remember reading and hearing about this incredible technological advance, even as I mourned having been uprooted from the comfortable surroundings of my early life.
I remember this iconic popular song.
Hearing it takes me back to the surroundings in Frederiksted where we lived having first arrived on St. Croix.
"Telstar" by the Tornados (1962)
Courtesy of YouTube
Telstar represented a multiplicity of firsts.
It was the first privately financed satellite launch, developed by Bell Labs and funded by AT&T. It enabled the first live transatlantic television transmissions during the approximately two hours that the satellite was visible in the sky from both France and the US, and thus accessible to act as a relay for television, data, or telephone transmissions.
Telstar foreshadowed the many communications satellites that now form a global necklace in their relatively permanent geosynchronous orbits.
The Original Telstar Satellite
Public Domain image courtesy of NASA
Here's an underreported fact:
British science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame is the one who first proposed using satellites as communications relays.
Clarke also helped to popularize rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's concept of a space elevator that could vastly reduce the cost of delivering payloads to earth orbit.
Communication Satellite
Image courtesy of [NASA](https://unsplash.com/@nasa and http://pixabay.com
Another trip down memory lane, complete...
Thanks for joining me.
~FIN~
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Sucks we still haven't made it to Mars or even back to the moon.
I agree... however, I'm happy to see what appears to me to be a lot of private enterprise efforts that seem to be seriously moving in those directions, plus toward accessing resources from near-earth asteroids.
I have always been a big fan of that song and the space endeavors of the 1960's. It was the Camelot of a glorious time for which I am grateful to have been born around that time. That being said have you ever given any creditability to the documented belief that they faked the moon landing? I included the movie video ' A funny Thng Happened on The Way to the Moon' below. I have not decided on how I believe with regards to this. Thanks for taking us down the warmth of memories @creatr.
Hi Troy,
Thanks for your relevant comments, and for the link to that video.
To answer your question, no, I give very little credence to skeptical views that assert we have not visited the Moon. If anything, I am more inclined to believe that the powers that be actually have more advanced space travel technology than has been revealed publicly, allowing an elite few to visit the Moon and planets in comfort and style very quickly and at incredible speeds.
I do not equate the motivation and ability to travel in space with the biblical injunction against prideful achievement, as this video appears to do. Surely there are men who are prideful about man having traveled to the Moon, but I think that this particular conspiracy theory is quite specious and unfounded.
I think it distracts from the real core of man's pride, namely, man's unshakeable arrogance when it comes to pretending that a mere man or group of men have some inherent authority to rule their fellow man.
Stated more simply, the primary prideful, Satanic sin of mankind is the elevation and recognition of human government to its present god-like status.
😄😇😄
The advances in space that we have today are allowing us to overcome unthinkable barriers for many generations that preceded us. By the way it is always good to keep our childhood memories alive. Receive my appreciation @creatr