Satellite communications connect television screens in Japan with television cameras in England, and the distance of half a world loses its meaning.
We covered every major segment of this broadband communications world.
And then my chance really happened in 1996 when we added the second flight of the tether satellite.
When you lower the cost of access to space, a boom of innovation follows, just as low-cost fiber optics paved the way for the Internet and the cloud services that followed.
Even on television, the wavelengths that you use, they have to be distributed between countries.
I founded a launch company called International Microspace when I graduated medical school in 1989. We were trying to build a microsatellite launcher.
Here, in low earth orbit, we're going around the earth, so we can actually use an Internet protocol phone because we have the appropriate satellites that can get those bandwidths.
The space industry is developing and delivering benefits that tie into our immediate needs and priorities here on Earth-for example, medical and materials research, and satellite communications.
The point of that is, if you look at Walgreen's history, they've always been pioneers in the application of technology. They're the only drugstore chain that I know to have their own satellite.
All of us know today the value of communications satellites, weather satellites, resources satellites, etc.
Aside from communications satellites, space is devoid of industry.
Micro satellites, about the size of a loaf of bread, are going to be going into space more and more.
NSS strongly supports the usage of space to provide benefits to people living on the Earth. The Iridium satellites enable first responders to communicate rapidly during an emergency anywhere in the world.
The satellite business is a very successful business, very profitable business, and serves the broadcast market in addition to the telecoms market.
