Table Of ContentCOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES
Global Change Agents
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
A Series of Volumes Edited
by Christopher H. Sterling
Selected titles include:
Borden/Harvey • The Electronic Grapevine: Rumor, Reputation,
and Reporting in the New On-Line Environment
Cherry/Wildman/Hammond • Making Universal Service Policy: Enhancing
the Process Through Multidisciplinary Evaluation
Gattiker • The Internet as a Diverse Community: Cultural, Organizational,
and Political Issues
Gillett/Vogelsang • Competition, Regulation, and Convergence: Current
Trends in Telecommunication Policy Research
MacKie-Mason/Waterman • Telephony, the Internet, and the Media: Selected
Papers From the 1997 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference
Mody/Bauer/Straubhaar • Telecommunications Politics: Ownership
and Control of the Information Highway in Developing Countries
Noll • Highway of Dreams: A Critical View Along the Information
Superhighway
Regli • Wireless: Strategically Liberalizing the Telecommunications Market
COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES
Global Change Agents
Edited by
Joseph N. Pelton
Robert J. Oslund
The George Washington University
Peter Marshall
Communications Consultant
AWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Communications satellites : global change agents / edited by Joseph N. Pelton,
Robert J. Oslund, Peter Marshall.
p. cm. — (Telecommunications)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4961-0 (alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8058-4962-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Artificial satellites in telecommunication. 2. Artificial satellites in
telecommunication—Social, technology, political, and economic aspects.
I. Pelton, Joseph N. II. Oslund, Robert J. III. Marshall, Peter (Peter P.)
IV. Telecommunications.
TK5104.C625 2004
384.5 '1—dc22 2003064927
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free
paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
Dedication xxi
I. INTRODUCTION
1 Satellites as Worldwide Change Agents 3
Joseph N. Pelton
II. TECHNOLOGY
2 Satellite Technology: The Evolution of Satellite Systems
and Fixed Satellite Services 33
Louis Ippolito and Joseph N. Pelton
3 The "New" Satellite Services: Broadcast, Mobile,
and Broadband Internet Satellite Systems 55
D. K. Sachdev and Dan Swearingen
v
vi CONTENTS
4 Launch Vehicles and Their Role 83
Eric J. Novotny
III. HISTORY AND POLITICS
5 The Geopolitics and Institutions of Satellite Communications 111
Robert J. Oslund
6 Regulating Communications Satellites on the Way
to Globalism 147
Robert J. Oslund
7 Dual Use Challenge and Response: Commercial
and Military Uses of Space Communications 175
Robert J. Oslund
IV. BUSINESS, MEDIA, AND ECONOMICS
8 Satellites, Internet, and IP Networking 199
Indu B. Singh and Robinder N. Sachdev
9 Benefits of Satellite Telecommunications 219
Dr. Norman C. Lerner
10 The World of Satellite TV: News, the Olympics,
and Global Entertainment 243
Peter Marshall and Robert N. Wold
V. IMPACT ON SOCIETY
11 New Opportunities and Threats for 21st-century Life 265
Joseph N. Pelton
12 Satellites and the Promise of Teleeducation and Telehealth 281
Joseph N. Pelton
13 Satellites and Global Diversity 299
Hamid Mowlana
CONTENTS vii
VI. FUTURE TRENDS
14 The Future of Satellite Communications Systems 317
Joseph N. Pelton, Takashi Iida, and Naoto Kadowaki
VII. SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONS
15 Trends for the Future: Telepower Opportunities
and Teleshock Concerns 341
Joseph N. Pelton and Robert J. Oslund
Glossary 359
Biographies of the Authors 363
Author Index 371
Subject Index 375
This page intentionally left blank
Foreword
Christopher H. Sterling, Series Editor
George Washington University
REMEMBERING THE EXCITEMENT . . .
In October 1957, I was one of thousands across the country watching the early
evening skies for signs of something new in space—the Russian Sputnik, the
world's first artificial satellite, launched earlier that month. We could make out
the tiny moving satellite orbiting just high enough to reflect the setting sun. It
would streak across the visible sky in just a few moments on its 90-minute orbits
around the earth, but at least we could see this latest step in heading for the stars.
Then just entering high school, I was too young to understand how the Russian's
surprise launch of this pioneer struck the Washington, DC, military and policy
communities. Nor did I realize then that Arthur C. Clarke had predicted orbiting
"rocket stations" (communication satellites) in a British journal just a dozen years
earlier, although he thought decades might pass before the first appeared. Years
later, I saw a replica of the basketball-sized Sputnik at the United Nations, a gift of
the proud nation that launched it.
Space travel and communication were hugely exciting things in the 1950s.
Many of us had grown up with the other-worldly paintings of space travel by
Chesley Bonestell illustrating the pages of weekly magazines and a subsequent
series of popular books, including The Conquest of Space (1949), Across the
Space Frontier (1952), and Conquest of the Moon (1953). Science fiction stories
and novels, articles predicting space travel, and movies were all the rage. In an era
of relatively slow propeller-driven airliners and jet fighter aircraft, the idea of
space satellites or traveling was positively energizing.
ix
