How the World Was One by Arthur C. Clarke

Author:Arthur C. Clarke [Clarke, Arthur C.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780575121881
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

22

BEYOND THE IONOSPHERE

Several times in human history, new lands have been suddenly opened up for exploitation, and settlers have rushed in to stake their claims. The most famous example – now enshrined in popular mythology – is that of the American West. (Movie buffs may have noticed my indebtedness to Hollywood for the title of this book.)

The territory carved up in the electromagnetic ‘land rush’ of the twentieth century was of a kind that could not have been imagined in earlier ages. What would a typical Victorian robber baron have thought, had he been told that there was an unexploited natural resource worth not billions but trillions of dollars, completely invisible and untouchable – and a hundred kilometres overhead?

The ionosphere also has another unique characteristic; it is the only terrestrial resource which can never be exhausted. If all the world’s radio transmitters closed down today, it would be just as intact as when the sun’s rays first created it, before life began on Earth. (Indeed, it might well be that life could not begin, until it was created, and blocked out the deadlier radiations from space.)

Local radio stations, serving a limited area, do not need the ionosphere to reflect their signals back to Earth; in fact, it can sometimes be a nuisance, causing interference from distant sources, especially at night. It was only with the establishment of global radio telecommunications that this natural mirror in the sky became of enormous commercial and political importance – though not until fortunes had been wasted in pursuit of the ‘long-wave’ mirage.*

For half a century, the medium and short radio waves have carried much of mankind’s business, news and entertainment. They will probably always play an important role in telecommunications, because no useful technology is ever completely abandoned. But their dominance ended on 4 October 1957-the last day on which planet Earth had only a single moon.

Much of the remainder of this book is concerned with the communications revolution brought about by satellites, and it has been my good luck to be involved in this from the earliest days. The ‘Brief Prehistory’ which follows is therefore highly personal, and I have made no attempt (not that I would have succeeded very well) to play the role of a completely distinterested and impartial observer. I hope, in fact, that my occasional asides and comments may provide more entertainment than the usual carefully sterilised technological rapportage.

Over the last thirty years I have written several versions of the comsat story, filling in more details as I recalled them, or was reminded of them by others. What is perhaps the most complete is the address I gave on receiving the Eighth Marconi International Fellowship Award in 1982, the citation of which reads: ‘For first specifying in detail the potentialities and technical requirements for the use of geostationary satellites for global communications; for other innovations in communications and remote sensing from space throughout a lifetime of promoting the benevolent use of advanced space technology.’

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