Satellite
Benefits
Satellites can collect more data, more quickly, than instruments on the ground. Before satellites, TV only travel in straight lines. So they would quickly trail off into space instead of following Earth's curve. Sometimes mountains or tall buildings would block them. Phone calls to faraway places were also a problem. Setting up telephone wires over long distances or underwater is difficult and costs a lot. With satellites, TV signals and phone calls are sent upward to a satellite. Then, almost instantly, the satellite can send them back down to different locations on Earth. Communications satellites have the ability to rapidly communicate between a number of widely dispersed locations.
Satellites looking toward Earth provide information about clouds, oceans, land and ice. They also measure gases in the atmosphere, such as ozone and carbon dioxide, and the amount of energy that Earth absorbs and emits. And satellites monitor wildfires, volcanoes and their smoke. All this information helps scientists predict weather and climate. The information also helps public health officials track disease and famine; it helps farmers know what crops to plant; and it helps emergency workers respond to natural disasters.
Satellite-based navigation systems like Navstar Global Positioning Systems enable anyone with a handheld receiver to determine his location to within a few meters, They are known colloquially as GPS. GPS based systems are used by the civilians and the military for navigation on land, the sea, and the air, and they are crucial in the situations like a ship making a difficult course in a harbor in the bad weather or the troops lost in unknown regions.
Negative Impact
Reconnaissance satellites are used to spy on other countries, They provide intelligence information on the military activities of foreign countries, They can detect missile launches or nuclear explosions in space. Elint is the basic spy satellite that picks up the radio transmissions, and the maps location of countries defense base. About a fifth of all satellites belongs to the military and are used for spying.
Ocean surveillance satellites are used to search for the ships or the submarines, They can spot the nuclear vessels, and new advancements to protect the countries from the sneak attacks, and to detect if other countries are building or storing the nuclear warheads.
Invention History
In 1903 Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky showed mathematically that an artificial satellite was feasible. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, shocking the American public and beginning the Space Age. The Russian satellite effort was led by Sergei Korolev, who was born in 1907, and trained at university to become an aerospace engineer. In the 1930s he worked on developing long range missiles. In 1953, Korolev began work on the R7, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, which he successfully tested in August 1957. The powerful rocket was capable of launching satellites weighing more than a ton into orbit.
