Long before communications satellites carried television, telephone calls and internet traffic around the planet, engineers had to answer a much more basic question:
Could we reliably send a signal into space and get it back somewhere else?
One early answer was enormous, shiny and surprisingly low-tech.
NASA's Echo 1A launched on August 12, 1960.
Once inflated in orbit, the balloon measured roughly 100 feet across. Its reflective aluminized surface allowed powerful antennas on Earth to aim radio signals toward it.
The balloon didn't process the signal.
It simply reflected it.
Ground stations could then receive that reflected signal hundreds or thousands of miles away.
During the project, a prerecorded message from President Dwight Eisenhower was transmitted from California and received clearly in New Jersey.
Echo went on to help demonstrate long-distance telephone, radio and television communications through space.
It was quickly surpassed by more sophisticated technology.
Active communications satellites could receive a signal, amplify it and transmit it back to Earth rather than depending entirely on reflection.
But Echo helped establish something fundamental:
space could become part of Earth's communications infrastructure.
Today, satellites connect ships, aircraft, phones, television systems and remote communities across the planet.
The path toward that connected world included a giant metallic balloon floating silently overhead.