This is a field of enormous promise, and its practicality has already
been demonstrated to the extent of placing satellites into precise
orbits, such as Tiros (weather) and Transit (navigation), and of
communicating at long distances--23 million miles in the case of Pioneer
V. As a result:
Government and industry technicians are rapidly developing new
Earth satellites to beam not only television programs but radio
broadcasts and phone conversations to every spot on Earth that's
equipped to receive them. Thus this space project, far more than
most, will touch the ordinary citizen. The goal: a workable,
worldwide communications system in space before this decade is
over. It will be, declares one researcher, "the ultimate in
communications."[55]
Incidentally, the first worldwide communications system of this type,
and whether it is conducted in English or Russian, may have crucial
prestige and propaganda ramifications.
Such facilities should be possible through a system of carefully placed
satellites so that radio signals can be relayed to any part of the globe
at any time.
Moreover they appear to be essential when one considers that within the
next 20 years existing techniques are apt to be stretched beyond
reasonable economic limits by demands for long distance communications.
It is difficult to see how transoceanic television will otherwise be
possible when it is realized that there is presently a capacity of less
than 100 telephone channels across the Atlantic and a single television
channel is equivalent in band width to 1,000 telephone channels. It
appears that a system utilizing satellites is the most promising
solution to this problem.[56]
More esoteric communications systems may also arise from space research.
In some future year when a cruising space vehicle communicates with
another space vehicle or its orbiting station, it may use a beam of
light instead of conventional radio. Not that radio will be
inoperative under the airless conditions of space--rather the
reverse--but there is reason to believe that communication by
sunlight not only will be cheaper but will entail carrying much
simpler and lighter equipment for certain specialized space
applications. (The Air Force) is developing an experimental system
that will collect sun rays, run them through a modulator, direct
the resultant light wave in a controlled beam to a receiver. There
the wave will be put through a detector, transposed into an
electrical impulse and be amplified to a speaker. Depending on the
type of modulator used, either the digital (dot-dash) message or a
voice message can be sent.[57]
Might not such a system find practical usage on Earth, particularly in
sunny, arid lands?