Hm, here’s an interesting bit of trivia: today is the 45th anniversary of the launch of Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite. We take instantaneous global connectivity pretty much for granted these days — think about how routinely TV news programs like The Today Show interview people who are on the other side of the planet, or how easy it is to make a phone call to another continent — but I imagine such stuff must’ve seemed dowright miraculous in 1962. That must’ve been such an exciting time to be alive, what with all the boundaries expanding and miracles happening right and left. They’re still happening today, of course, but I don’t think we notice so much. Today’s miracles are far more subtle, and more integrated into our daily lives. Indeed, we’ve come to expect new miracles on a regular basis, and we get really impatient if they don’t work quite the way we want them to.

Telstar Logistics blogs about his namesake here, and he includes some fascinating links and factoids. For instance, I did not know that Telstar is still up there, an orbitting piece of space junk that’s been dead since its electronics failed in February of 1963. I thought it surely must’ve re-entered and burned up years ago. I don’t know why, but I think it’s really cool that it’s still there…