Evolution of Satalites

satellite is probably the most useful invention since the wheel. Satellites have the capability to let you talk with someone across the nation or let you close a business deal through video communication. Almost everything today is heading towards the use of satellites, such as telephones. At&t has used this communications satellite (top right) ever since the late 1950s. TVS and radios are also turning to the use of satellites. RCA and Sony have released satellite dishes for Radio and Television services. New technology also allows the military to use satellites as a weapon. The new ION cannon is a satellite that can shoot a particle beam anywhere on earth and create an earthquake. They can also use it's capability for imaging enhancement, which allows you to zoom in on someone's nose hairs all the way from space. Robert Gossard (left) was one of the most integral inventors of the satellite. He was born on October 5, 1882. He earned his Masters and Doctoral degree in Physics at Clark University. He conducted research on improving solid-propellant rockets. He is known best for firing the world's first successful liquid-propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. This was a simple pressure-fed rocket that burned gasoline and liquid oxygen. It traveled only 56m (184 ft) but proved to the world that the principle was valid. Gossard Died August 10, 1945. Gossard did not work alone, he was also in partnership with a Russian theorist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Tsiolkovsky was born on September 7, 1857. As a child Tsiolkovsky educated himself and rose to become a High School teacher of mathematics in the small town of Kaluga, 145km (90mi) south of Moscow. In his early years Tsiolkovsky caught scarlet fever and became 80% deaf. Together, the theoretical work of Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the experimental work of American Robert Gossard, confirmed that a satellite might be launched by means of a rocket. I chose the satellite to research because many things such as computers, TVS and telephones are using satellites, and I thought it would be a good idea to figure out how they work and the history behind them before we start to use them more rapidly. I also picked the satellite because I think that my life would differ without it. For instance, The Internet or World Wide Web would run very slowly or would cease to exist altogether. We wouldn't be able to talk to people across the world because telephone wires would have to travel across the Atlantic, and if they did, the reception would be horrible. We wouldn't know what the weather would be like on earth, or what the stars and planets are like in space. We wouldn't be able to watch live television premiers across the country because all those are via satellite. A satellite is a secondary object that revolves in a closed orbit around a planet or the sun, but an artificial satellite is used to revolve around the earth for scientific research, earth applications, or Military Reconnaissance. All artificial satellites consist of certain features in common. They include radar for altitude measurements, sensors such as optical devices in observation satellites, receivers and transmitters in communication satellites, and stable radio-signal sources in navigation satellites. Solar cells generate power from the sun , and storage batteries are used for the periods when the satellite is blocked from the sun by the Earth. These batteries in turn are recharged by the solar cells. The Russians launched Sputnik 1 (left) on October 4, 1957, as the first satellite ever to be in space. The United States followed by launching Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. In the years that followed, more than 3,500 satellites were launched by the end of 1986. A science physicist said that "If you added up all the radio waved sent and received by satellites, it wouldn't equal the energy of a snowflake hitting the ground. Satellites were built and tested on the ground. They were then placed into a rocket and launched into space, where they were released and placed into orbit. The rocket would then become space junk, and the owner of the satellite would lose a tremendous amount of money. Now that NASA has created a space shuttle, several satellites can be launched simultaneously from the shuttle and the shuttle can then land for reuse and financial purposes. The space shuttles also have the capability to retrieve a satellite from orbit and bring it down to earth for repairs or destruction. Once the satellite is released from the space shuttle, the antenna on the satellite will receive a signal from earth that will activate it's rockets to move it into orbit. Once in orbit, The antenna will receive another signal telling the satellite to erect it's solar panels (bottom). Then the control center on earth will upload a program to the satellite telling it to use it's censors to maintain a natural orbit with earth. The satellite will then pick a target point on earth, and stay above that point for the remainder of it' s life. Once a satellite shuts down, the program uploaded to the satellite will tell it to fold up it's solar panels and remain in its orbit. Several days after the shut down, a space shuttle will pick up the satellite for repairs or replacement of new cells. As you can see, the satellite is a very complicated piece of technology, but it's capabilities are endless. By the end of the year 2000, there will be an estimated 7,000 satellites in orbit! That's a satellite per 36,000 people. Satellites are becoming more and more useful as technology advances. Computers are turning towards the Internet, telephones are turning towards video-communication, and televisions are looking for better cable services. So as long as satellites orbit the earth, you might as well take advantage of them now, before it's too late.