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Show Pres. Fletcher Speaks To Campus ROTC On Com mo Satellites r ' ' " ' ' ; ' i 1 ' - I f V toaw. Aim inni.. ,iriltr I -r -Mmr-tnn- President James C. Fletcher addressed the combined Army, Navy and Air Force ROTC units Friday in Orson Spencer Hall. Communications satellites was the subject of the lecture which was hosted by the Army and attended at-tended by some 650 cadets, midshipman, mid-shipman, sponsors and cadre officers. of-ficers. PRES. FLETCHER, has been personally involved in the United States' effort to orbit communications communi-cations satellites since the idea was first conceived. THE IDEA of an orbiting relay station was first proposed just after World War II as an answer to the problem of how to transmit trans-mit TV signals across the nation. IN 1956, BOTH the United States and Russia proposed to orbit satellites as part of the International Geophysical year. This led to Russia's famous Sputnik Sput-nik and the U.S. reply, which Dr. Fletcher pointed out, was just a stunt with no real scientific or military significance. Later projects included Project Echo, the giant passive reflector balloon launched by AT&T in cooperation co-operation with the government, a scheme by the military for a completely secure (i.e. in code incapable of being broken) world wide communications setup, and several schemes for about 15 low altitude satellites which would provide direct, instantaneous, intercontinental in-tercontinental communications. THE TYPE of satellite Dr. Fletcher was most concerned .vith is a synchronous satellite, or one which orbits at the same speed which the earth turns and in the same direction so it remains re-mains directly above the same spot on the earth all of the time. The semi - public corporation, Comsat which was set up by President Kennedy is working with this type of project. IN ORDER for the centrifugal force of the orbiting speed of a synchronous satellite to equal the pull of gravity on it, the satellite sat-ellite must orbit at a distance of about 25,000 miles. This leads to problems in getting get-ting a strong signal back to earth over that great distance. THESE PROBLEMS can be solved, said Pres. Fletcher by adjusting ad-justing the satellite's antennas so that they beam the signal directly direct-ly onto the earth, thereby conserving con-serving the power of the signal. All this demands extremely sophisticated so-phisticated equipment. In projecting the s i g n i f i -cance of communications satellites, satel-lites, Pres. Fletcher spoke of the possibility of direct person to person communications among the entire world population. HE ILLUSTRATED the possible possi-ble military significance by relating re-lating the importance of communications commu-nications in the Golf of Tonkin last summer. |
