Satellite television is 46 years old today

46 years ago today, the Telstar 1 communication satellite was fired into the straopshere to swirl, beep and blink around Mother Earth... and 13 days later, beamed the first international satellite television feed from America to France. The program chosen was interesting: it appears to features a fluttering American flag in front of a massive planet-like orb. "Listen here, you shifty grenouilles..." it seems to proclaim, "The heavens and all in them? Property of the space cowboys. You wouldn't even believe the extraterrestrial escargot you can get up here. You Ess Ay! You Ess Ay!"

The Telstar's bragging patriotism wasn't to last: the Cold War hobby of "testing" nukes by exploding them in orbit fried the Telstar's circuit boards by 1963. But the Telstar line has had many upgrades, with the Telstar 18 launched as recently as 2004. And the prototype is still out there — not beeping or booping or blinking, but still swirling in a school of its futuristic brethren... the doddering old grampa of an entire line of satellites keeping us all connected to the larger world through our boob tubes.

46 Years of Satellite TV [Retro Thing]