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"SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age"
Copyright:Copernicus/Springer Verlag (New York)
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Book description.
Letter from James Webb, NASA administrator, to the director of the Bureau of the Budget, dated March 13,1961. On communication satellites, Webb wrote, "This proposal specifically contemplates that this Administration should reverse the Eisenhower policy under which $10 million of the NASA active communication satellite program would be financed by private industry. In my view this would not be in the public interest at this stage in a highly experimental research and development program" (David Whalen, NASA History Office).
A memorandum, dated April 28, 1961, for John A. Johnson, NASA general council, from James Webb, on the subject of a letter to Fred Kappel, president of AT&T, gives Webb's view that government should not reach a hasty decision about its policy on experimental programs, such as communication satellites, without thoroughly considering all possible interest groups (David Whalen from the NASA History Office).
Memorandum for the associate administrator, dated May 16, 1961, concerning expansion of the active communication satellite program, by Robert Nunn. The memo discusses the policy issues and the public versus private development of operational communication satellites.
Summary of the Comsat Bill:
Comsat stock was issued on June 2, 1964. There were ten million shares at $20 per share. The net proceeds to Comsat were $196 million. Half the capital was raised from individuals and half from 150 communications compames.
Chapter seventeen: Of Moons and Balloons
Personal details about John Pierce (mainly pages 180 -182) come from my own interviews with him.
Other details are from the next four references: oral history taken by Harriet Lyle for the archive of the California Institute of Technology in 1979.
The Beginnings of Satellite Communications, by J. R. Pierce, with a preface by: Arthur C. Clarke (San Francisco Press, 1968) (copy from John Pierce);
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