Voyager in space
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, October 21st
2019
One fascinating thing about history is
looking back and discovering something you had forgotten or maybe you never
knew.
“The only thing new in the world,” said
President Harry Truman, “is the history you do not know.”
Sometimes it seems like life’s always
been this way and there’s nothing new in the world except the next iPhone. But,
of course, that isn’t true.
Who knew that before they mounted
machine guns on their airplanes, WWI aviators threw large metal “darts/spears”
at each other?
Anyone remember slide rules, transistor
radios, or 8-tracks? How about that metal band around a wooden wagon wheel that
our pioneers called a tire?
In this day of cellphones and
satellites that bring us video, music and instant communication all around the
world, is there anyone left who’s old enough to remember how it used to be?
A telephone call to a battlefield
soldier was unheard of. Film or video of an overseas news event was hand
carried or flown back to the U.S. for delayed broadcast.
That began to change July 10, 1962,
with the launch of Telstar, the world’s first telecommunications satellite —
what the Associated Press said had “inaugurated an era of ocean-spanning
international live television from outer space.”
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| Telstar 1 - 10 July 1962 |
But, it had done more than that. After
first transmitting a picture of an American flag, Telstar relayed the first
telephone call from space, a brief conversation between a telephone executive
in Maine with Vice President Lyndon Johnson in the White House.
 |
| Telstar 1-Transmits First Photo and Telephone Call from Space in 1962 |
Two weeks later, Medford Mayor John
Snider watched as a green telephone was installed on his desk.
Medford was one of only 23 U.S. cities,
and the only city in the Pacific Northwest, given the opportunity to make a
phone call to its sister city through Telstar.
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| Medford, Oregon and Alba, Italy Mayors Speak via Telstar 1 |
At 3:45 in the afternoon, July 26, the
mayor’s voice traveled from Medford to the East Coast transmission site, then
on to Paris by Telstar, and from Paris to the mayor of Alba, Italy.
There, an
early-morning (about 1 a.m.) crowd of 3,000 in the town square heard everything
on loudspeakers.
It was a brief, yet emotional
five-minute conversation, as the Alba mayor, in rapid Italian, thanked America
for its help during and after WWII and said he wished he had more time to say
all the things his residents wanted him to say.
Mayor Snider said he lost all feeling
of the 6,000 miles that separated the two men. “Although I couldn’t understand
a single one of the rapidly spoken words, I could feel in each of them a
meaning of genuine friendship and warmth. I shall forever be grateful for
having had the opportunity to represent my community in this exciting bit of
history.”
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| Italian Newspaper Reports on Telstar Telephone Call Between Alba, Italy & Medford, Oregon Mayor in July 1962 |
The crowd in Alba, waving American and
Italian flags, cheered while the town band played the Italian and American
national anthems.
Mail Tribune Editor Eric Allen wondered
what Telstar could mean.
“In a few years, worldwide TV will be a
daily occurrence,” he said. “It is potentially a cultural, sociological and
political event of major importance — perhaps even approaching the invention of
movable type.”
Telstar, now silent, still orbits the
Earth. Barely three-feet wide, that long-forgotten space voyager had changed
our world overnight.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories.
Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
