A Star Is Born

In a pioneering scientific week that saw the first invasion of the fringes of space by thermonuclear power, the imagination of the civilized world was captured by an even more dramatic U.S. achievement: the lofting into the heavens of a bejeweled sphere crammed with man-made magic wands that turn blips and beeps into sights and sounds. With the launching of Telstar (mispronounced by most as Telestar), the U.S. raised the curtain on intercontinental television and opened a whole new epoch in the art of communications. Even more, by its immediate and remarkable success, Telstar:

> Gave new luster to that oft-whipped old goat, Free Enterprise. Conceived and built by American Telephone & Telegraph's Bell Laboratories, Telstar is private industry's first space vehicle and its launching a proud example of how government and industry can work together for mutual benefit.

>Proved once again that the technological sophistication of U.S. science can be superior to the big-thrust, small-yield accomplishments of the Soviet Union. > Showed the practical aspects of the peaceful uses of space, established the means for practical contact between continents never before imagined, and became a fixture by which man in his own living room and in his own town may witness world events as they happen.

Telstar trailed behind it the stuff of history. To the annals of place names like Kitty Hawk, Palomar and Canaveral it added Andover, the earth station in Maine; a place with the wonderful name of Goonhilly, in southwest England; and the euphonious Pleumeur-Bodou, in Brittany. In the long record of man's scientific triumphs, it ranked in drama with Morse's telegraphic message ("What hath God wrought!") and Bell's first telephoned sentence ("Mr. Watson, come here--I want you!''). To many Americans, as they sat by their TV sets, it evoked memories of such remarkable events as the 1930 international radio broadcast of Britain's King George V from the London Naval Conference, and of H. V. Kaltenborn's microphone in a haystack, recording the sounds of the Spanish Civil War.

Loud & Clear. Yet perhaps never before had a historic event been introduced with such a peculiar potpourri of show business, mundane shop talk and excited chatter. A.T. & T. Chairman Frederick Kappel bounced his voice off the satellite to send greetings by phone to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who eagerly took the call in Washington. The first picture to be beamed from the earth station in Maine was a TV camera's view of the American flag waving near the ground tracking facilities, while a sound track carried The Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. Scientists had expected Telstar to transmit only in the U.S., but they got a bonus. British televiewers, still up at 1 a.m., caught only a wavering picture of the Vice President before the view was lost, but in France the reception was so loud and clear that technicians at Pleumeur-Bodou compared it favorably with the quality of a transmission from 20 miles away.

Next night the French reciprocated by shooting a video tape off Telstar straight into U.S. TV sets. Communications Minister Jacques Marette introduced the program, and with Gallic aplomb cooed: "But let's forget the technical feat for a moment. Relax; you are in Paris, and I invite you to spend a few pleasant moments with me . . ." The moments: Yves Montand singing La Chansonnette, Michele Arnaud singing Deux Enfants an Soleil, Guitarist Michel Aubert playing Chanson de I'ete. Despite the fact that the program had been prerecorded and could have originated in the canned-film studios of any U.S. TV station, the effect, if not the programming, was electric. More than that, it sent the British into a snit, for the 16-member nations of Eurovision (representing European TV stations) had agreed not to broadcast any "entertainment" during the initial tests. The British adamantly fulfilled their part of the bargain by showing only some top technicians at Goonhilly ground station sitting at their consoles and looking like children at a Christmas party. As beamed into U.S. homes, those few moments carried greater impact than the French presentation, for the British segment was "live," and carried all the excitement of Telstar's immediacy.

Space Stallions. Despite the rudimentary content of Telstar's first performances, its promise is assured (see SCIENCE). Experimentation with other pictures and with transatlantic phone calls followed the first TV shots. A big show is set for July 23, when Telstar will relay live broadcasts by the three major U.S. networks and those of Eurovision. Vienna will go on the air with a 45-second performance of classic horsemanship by the famed white Lipizzaner stallions. There is a possibility that Europe will see President Kennedy on that program. And ultimately, with 30 or more Telstars girdling the earth, new ideas, new forms, new delights, heightened by their visual presence, will leap the bounds of time and flash on the screens of TV sets everywhere --a front seat at a coronation, an Olympic game, a summit meeting, the Louvre, the Thames, the Parthenon. Through the vault of space, Paris will go to Paducah, Warsaw to Winnemucca, Venice to Valdosta, and with them through space a new era in man's vision.

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