I tried Googling this.
For a long time I thought that someone appearing live via satellite started in the 80’s, but recently saw that it even goes back to the 70’s.
So, when did this start? From what I could find I’d guess somewhere in the mid to late 60’s maybe?
Cool, thanks.
Part of a Cubs-Phillies game, then. Who knew!
There was an earlier communication satellite, an inflatable space balloon was launched in 1958 and didn’t transmit, just relayed, signals from one point on Earth to another.
Unfortunately its orbit was influenced by the heat of the sun and one day it was pushed back into the atmosphere and popped.
Cool! I love how the later re-calibration of the antenna for the 1960 balloon accidentally detected the Cosmic Background Radiation of the universe.
When I was a kid, for some reason, I use to think about the 60’s as a primitive time with very little technology. I eventually was dissuaded from that notion, but it seems I’m still not giving that decade its due.
Perhaps because so much of the high technology was “hidden” – not a tangible, obvious part of daily life, like smart phones are. The average person had no reason to be aware if Howdy Doody was bouncing off some satellite or not.
I’ve noticed a similar tendency in myself. I think it’s mainly because of two things–cars and computers.
Even though cars looked so much better back then, their performance and longevity were relatively primitive compared to cars today.
Computers were indeed extremely primitive compared to anything made in the last 15 years.
And while it isn’t so obvious, there’s a whole host of medical technologies–MRIs, joint replacements, transplants, etc.–that either didn’t exist at all or were just getting started back then.
Global telecommunications are such a given these days, I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen the phrase being used. Some news reports (e.g., from a war zone) may mention how the report was being transmitted, by way of apology for the poor quality, but the actual phrase “Live, via satellite” isn’t used much, if at al, anymore.
On the plus side, there was the Mustang. On the minus side, there was the Galaxie 500 which I owned. Hardly anything around now as beastly as that.
It is not so much the advancement of computers as the omnipresence today. People were much more impressed back then. However, most computers were still behind glass walls, not in people’s pockets. I picked my college based on the number of computers around that I could see - which could still be counted on your fingers, even at MIT.
Growing up in the 60s it seemed like there was something new and different every day. A car like the Mustang was impressive next to the average boat or tin can being driven around. But we couldn’t imagine the revolution in electronics that would come, we were mostly stuck on jet packs and for some reason a pill that you could take once a day instead of eating. We did want Dick Tracy wrist radios, and then TVs. I can make a video call on my cellphone now (if I knew how to work that stupid thing), but the possible scope of technology and it’s impact were missed entirely at the time.
Skype seems to be taking over now.
Although not the first, probably the biggest was Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967. The UK’s contribution was the Beatles singing ‘All You Need Is Love’.
As a big Beatles buff, I came in here just to mention this…congrats on beating me to it!
I remember watching it at the time. Psychedelic times!
I recall seeing a broadcast of Pope (Paul VI?) in 1963 some ceremony in the Vatican “live via satellite” from Rome. It was pretty fuzzy, but I blame the rabbit ears for that.