Venus Equilateral

It's often the case that science fiction precedes science non-fiction.  Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke envisioned satellite communications long before it was a reality.  In this case Clarke wrote a serious proposal called "Extra-Terrestrial Relays" for geostationary communications satellites in 1945. You can read that here. But he had been inspired by the Venus Equilateral series of short science fiction stories by George O. Smith. The first of these were published in 1942.  The Smith stories concern the Venus Equilateral Relay Station, an interplanetary communications hub. Smith had the idea 3 years before Clarke and 20 years before the Telstar 1 satellite was launched on July 10, 1962.

Prior to the use of communication satellites, we had only two systems to defeat the curve of the earth. We had terrestrial wired systems, and we had microwave relay systems with towers on hilltops about 30 miles apart. But these systems were not great. Spanning just the North American continent took 107 hops by microwave relay. Prior to 1954 transatlantic cables were mostly fiscal and/or technological failures. Until the 1950s transatlantic telephone service was primarily radio-based. Technology had to catch up to the idea, but in the years after Clarke's proposal, the world began considering another approach. (Which we ironically reversed over the last decade)

Sputnik I was launched by the USSR in October of 1957, and the USA launched Explorer I in 1958. These were satellites, but not communication satellites.  In December of 1958 we launched Score under the Defense Department's ARPA program (Advanced Research Projects Agency). It was a shiny metallic mylar balloon 100 feet in diameter. It was in the spirit of, if not the design of some passive reflector design proposals written by J.R. Pierce around 1954. The actual unit was designed by Kenneth Masterman-Smith.  It contained two tape recorders (for redundancy) and four antennas two for transmission and two for reception. The frequencies used were 150 MHz for the uplink and 132 MHz for the downlink. Its batteries lasted 12 days and it then burned up on re-entry in January of 1959. It broadcast the first human voice communication from space on December 19th. President Eisenhowers words were as follows:

"This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you via a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere."

That's what he said, but what he meant was the U.S. now had the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon from space. The Russians took this poorly. More here. AARPA moved on with a project called Advent and Echo to mixed success. Echo was another 100ft passive reflector mylar balloon this one launched in August of 1960. It remained in orbit until May of 1968. Echo II was a bit more interesting. It was bigger at 135 feet in diameter, and was launched January 25, 1964. It came down in 1969. Following Echo, passive communications satellites were abandoned. Telstar 1, the first production active communication satellite was launched on July 10, 1962.

Broadast from Space!

Sputnik did broadcast the first signal from space. But the first voice... that was something else. Sputnik 1 was launched October 4th 1957. As Americans that's just the sort of thing that gets our gall. We had to keep up with the Jones'. I wrote about that first sputnik broadcast here. Let's cover what happened next.

Well November 1957 Russians launch Sputnik 2 with a small terrier on board. This went over about as well as Sputnik 1. We didn't even get around to forming NASA until July 28th 1958. So until then we had to rely on the "Ballistic Missile Agency." Not impressive. May 15th 1958 they launch Sputnik 3, an actual scientific instrument. This sent President Dwight Eisenhower into conniptions.

So to wrestle any degree of success we needed a "first." When we launched Explorer 1 on Jan. 31, 1958 that helped. It was a much more ambitious scientific project. But we weren't done. The fear was that these satellites were leading up to spy satellites, which of course they were.

NASA launched a communication vessel known as SCORE. The purpose of SCORE was to tape messages that were transmitted from earth at 150 MHz, and then send them back to earth. Dec. 18th, 1958 we launched SCORE into orbit via an Atlas rocket. It was a communications satellite, the first of it's kind.

Project SCORE first broadcast on December 19th, 1958 and carried a tape-recorded a Christmas greeting from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was broadcast on 107.97 MHz ad 107.94 MHz. Some texts will call thsi the first broadcast from space, but with the three preceding Sputnik's that is clearly not the case. But it is almost certainly the first voice broadcast from space.

First Space Transmission

Oh there were plenty of radio signals in space before this, but none that were man made emanating from space. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, into orbit. It was the first man-made satellite. The sphere was about twice the diameter of a basketball and weighed only 183 lbs. Sputnik is the English translation of "Спутник" It just means satellite. it didnt' have much inside other than a thermometer and a battery.
Sergei P. Korolëv was the man in charge of Sputnik. He was very proud of his shining sphere once saying "“This ball will be exhibited in museums!” He was right. A model of it was hing at the Worlds fair. Of course a certain grumpy U.S. intelligent agency made them take it down.
Sputnik had two transmitters. One relayed scientific data on 40.002 Mhz. The other emitted a beep to prove that it existed. Ham radio operators across the world could hear it's beacon beeping out radio signals at 20.005 Mhz. Radio Moscow announced the frequency to encourage shortwave users to tune in. The beeps got louder and then faded with the Doppler Shift. It is often theorized that the 20.005 Mhz frequency was selected because at that point in the solar cycle, that frequency range experienced significant skip. That would ensure that more hams would easily hear the signal. The batteries lasted about 23 days at which point the beep faded and then ceased. I've made a short mix of different recordings.

President Dwight Eisenhower had already been pushing for us to get an American satillite into space. He was not very interested in the scientific data. What he wanted was the legal precedent that space was not owned by we earthlings. Previous to this property ownership was assumed to extend vertically, there was no precedent as to how far. America had also been a proponent of "continental shelf ownership" a sketchy territorial concept that squeezed shipping lanes and helped the oil industry.Anyway Dwight had already seen the photos of Russian launch facilities our U2 flights had produced. He knew it was coming. So he immediately applied pressure on the rocket programs to launch what they had. So the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency duct-taped a bunch of test hardware to a wobbly Vanguard rocket. It exploded on the launch pad. The press mocked it with the nickname "Kaputnik." Only a month later Russia sent up Sputnik 2, which carried the sacrificial dog Laika into orbit. Sputink-1 burned up in orbit about 6 months later.
On Jan. 31, 1958, we did finally sent up a satellite. But it was still just the rmy Ballistic Missile Agency, not NASA that did it. Explorer 1 detected cosmic rays. It was a tad more interesting than Sputniks thermometer. NASA wasnt' formed until July 28th 1958. More here. In 1997 Russian cosmonauts launched a replica of Sputnik 1. This time from from the space station Mir, instead of terra firma. It was smaller than the original Sputnik-1, it recreated the familiar radio beacon. More here.