In 1945 Arthur C. Clarke wrote an article
entitled \"The Future of World
Communications\" for the magazine
Wireless World. This article, which the
editors renamed \"Extra-Terrestrial
Relays\", was published in the October
issue. In it Clarke described the properties
of the geostationary orbit, a circular orbit
in the equatorial plane of the earth such
that a satellite appears to hover over a
fixed point on the equator. The period of
revolution is equal to the period of
rotation of the earth with respect to the
stars, or 23 hours 56 minutes 4.1 seconds,
and thus by Kepler\'s third law the orbital
radius is 42,164 km. Taking into account
the radius of the earth, the height of a
satellite above the equator is 35,786 km.
Clarke observed that only three satellites
would be required to provide
communications over the inhabited earth.
As a primary application of such
a satellite system, Clarke proposed that
satellites in geostationary orbit might
provide direct......
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