One small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
Many of history's most iconic moments
have something in common.
They were broadcast to the world live by satellite.
But this technical feat that we take for granted
was not even possible all that long ago.
In fact, the entire era can be traced back
to July 10th, 1962, the day TV went global.
And here it is, television.
The exciting new medium of television
had been in regular use since the 1940s.
But there was a problem.
Live TV could only be transmitted by cables
or by terrestrial repeaters.
And both methods were impractical over very long distances.
In the first half of the 20th century,
a radical idea had been proposed in scientific circles.
What if an object could be put into outer space
that would act like a giant mirror,
bouncing signals from one point on Earth to another?
At the time, no manmade object had actually been in space,
but technically, it seemed possible.
In the late 1950s, hundreds of engineers and scientists
at AT&T Bell Laboratories were put to work
on an ambitious new project.
The first active communication satellite in space.
The project was called Telstar.
By today's standards, the design was rudimentary
and consumed less power than the average modern laptop.
But at the time, it was cutting edge,
featuring then-new technologies such as solar cells,
transistors, and a telemetry system for collecting data.
No less impressive was the ground equipment needed to track,
transmit, and receive signals from the Telstar satellite.
Massive yet exceptionally precise satellite dishes
were constructed on both side of the Atlantic Ocean
in order to capture and amplify Telstar's faint signal
as it whizzed and bobbed through its elliptical orbit.
In the early morning of July 10th, 1962,
Telstar One was launched atop a Thor-Delta rocket
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida,
the same site from which the Apollo 11 astronauts
would depart for their trip to the moon
almost exactly seven years later,
a feat that would be broadcast live to the entire world,
thanks in part to Telstar's groundbreaking achievement.
Armstrong is on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
Around 15 hours after its launch,
Telstar relayed the first live
satellite video transmission in history,
a congratulatory telephone call
between U.S. Vice President Lyndon Johnson
and the Chairman of AT&T, which had funded the project.
Good evening, Mister Vice President.
How do you hear me?
You're coming through nicely, Mister Cap-ul.
Well, that's wonderful,
the first telephone message in the world
over an active satellite.
Two weeks late on July 23rd,
a 20 minute multi-national program was broadcast to hundreds
of millions of viewers in Europe and the Americas.
Good afternoon.
Soon we'll be saying good evening to Europe
on the first exchange of live programs
between the television networks of the United States
and their affiliated stations
and the European Broadcast Union.
The lineup included a brief glimpse
of a baseball game at Wrigley Field.
Let's give all the baseball fans in Europe
a big hello from Chicago.
Remarks by U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
I understand that part of today's press conference
is being relayed by the Telstar communication satellite
and this is another indication
of the extraordinary world in which we live.
And live scenes from landmarks
around the U.S. and world.
A new era had officially dawned.
Putting another bit of history behind it,
Telstar will now rest for two and a half hours
while its solar batteries build up energy for another epic.
Telstar was celebrated
as a monumental achievement, became a sort
of high-tech celebrity, praised by politicians, journalists,
and scientists, and referenced widely in popular culture.
That's no moon, it's a space station.
Live by satellite soon became a regular feature
on network television, for everything from breaking news.
Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
To sporting events.
With the ever-present shadow of the Cold War looming large,
Telstar also marked a rare early victory in the Space Race
for the United States, which by that point had been beaten
by the Soviet Union with the first satellite in space,
the first animal in space, and the first man in space.
Unfortunately, the first Telstar satellite was damaged
by residual radiation from a thermo-nuclear bomb test
the day before its launch, which led
to the satellite's early demise within a few months.
Nevertheless, it demonstrated to the world
that live communication by a satellite was feasible,
proving the concepts laid out by early visionaries.
Soon to follow were more advanced communication satellites,
such as the Hughes Syncom, whose much higher
geosynchronous orbit allowed for true 24/7 global
TV coverage far beyond Telstar's limited broadcast window
due to its orbit path.
Although Telstar's technology was soon eclipsed,
the project also marked another important first:
the first privately sponsored space mission
carrying a commercial payload.
At a cost to AT&T of about $25 million
per launch in today's money.
Despite early concerns by policymakers
about the potential domination over space communications
by private industry, the success of the Telstar project
and the urgency to compete against the Soviet Union
helped to usher in an age of competitive cooperation
between the U.S. government and the private sector
in developing space technology.
That continues to today with companies like SpaceX,
Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, One Way,
and countless other start-ups.
Thanks to the new commercial space race,
satellites have once again become
the center of attention.
The cost to build and launch new satellites
continues to drop, widening the playing field
for eager entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos,
who are developing satellite networks
to provide broadband internet
to the estimated four billion people
who lack reliable access.
Other new satellite projects are devoted to everything
from tracking greenhouse gas emissions
to urban traffic flows to refugee movements.
Thousands of satellites are currently in orbit,
with thousands more likely on their way in the near future.
SpaceX alone has filed for FCC permits
for almost 12,000 new satellite in coming years.
Meanwhile, almost 60 years later,
the long dormant Telstar One is still floating
around our planet, a celestial artifact from a moment
in history that launched the world as we see it today.