TELSTAR AT 40

On July 10, 1962, a Boeing Thor Delta rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. On its tip was a 34-inch diameter, 171-pound sphere. The next day, July 11, the sphere with the Space Age name Telstar 1 flickered to life and the age of global satellite communications was born.

Telstar’s very first transmission brought to viewers – a scientific crowd, mostly – in Pleumer-Bodou, France, the sight of the American flag waving in the breeze and the sounds of “The Star- Spangled Banner.” Live, from Andover, Maine.

Andover was chosen as the site for the Earth station on this side of the Atlantic because of location. Elevation, relative absence of competing radio signals and proximity to Europe made a small town high in the mountains of western Maine the ideal place to communicate with a low-flying satellite that pumped out a feeble 15 watts.

And what better first communication to make than one of majestic Old Glory, even if it was in reality a small child’s flag held by the Andover Earth Station janitor. The next evening, the AT&T/Bell Labs technicians got a surprise return transmission from France, a short concert by the singer Yves Montand; Vice President Lyndon Johnson and AT&T Chairman Fred Kappel held the first satellite phone call. Over the next seven months of Telstar 1’s life (cut short by transistor-frying radiation), rapid construction of Earth stations elsewhere allowed hundreds of millions of people the world over to see live images of baseball, plays, concerts, news broadcasts, a presidential press conference, the Seattle World’s Fair and an epochal 17-nation exchange of scenery and landmarks.

The significance of Telstar 1 at the time went beyond being a great leap in communications. America was stunned by the Soviet Sputnik in 1957, stunned again by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. The Mercury astronauts got the United States back in the space race. Telstar, with practical applications apparent to every human being, put it in the lead.

Telstar’s ability to shrink distance and to rise above terrain, and to actively amplify signals (as opposed to the earlier “passive” balloons that merely reflected them), made global cultural, diplomatic and business exchanges suddenly possible and, before long, common. Within a few years, it brought the Vietnam War into America’s living rooms. Today, it makes the countryside of Afghanistan as familiar as that of a neighboring state and phone calls to anywhere routine.

This 40th anniversary will be observed in Andover during the next two days – some of the original scientists and technicians will gather, the historic exchange between a small town in Maine and a small town in France will be recreated, a plaque will be laid. For the rest of us on this small planet, perhaps a ceremonial salute with the TV remote would be in order.