More about Syncom 3

Happy New Year! I'm back in Adelaide, just moved house, trying to get motivated to do some work. The most pressing task is to finish an article for a book called "Contemporary Archaeologies: Excavating Now", edited by Angela Piccini and Cornelius Holtorf. I've decided to explore space technology and its significance as part of two major post-war social and cultural processes: decolonisation and globalisation. It's a good opportunity to revisit Syncom 3, which I first wrote about for the Australian Space Science Conference in Melbourne last year. One interesting new facet of this satellite (and Syncom 2) is the effect that the broadcast of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games via the Syncoms to Europe and North America had on the growth of the modern Olympic movement, and on Japanese television technology.

Soon I may have more to report about Australia's FedSat satellite, as I hope to have the opportunity to do some more detailed research on its significance.