Communications for Peace

This stamp, depicting the Echo I satellite, could have easily fit into the "Commemorations" section of my stamp collection, but we have the trusty "Pray for Peace" postmark, and the stamp's caption "Communications for Peace". So it fits nicely here.

First things first.

The Echo I satellite was an aluminum foil balloon that was pretty big (that is, if you would consider a 100-foot diameter balloon to be "big"). The Echo I orbited the earth for several years in the 1960's, and a lot of brainy folks practiced bouncing different types of communication signals off it, which, of course became the basis of knowledge that spawned the technology that beams every single NFL game into your home if you cough up the bucks at the beginning of the season.

That's all pretty interesting, but it's the caption that really matters: "Communications for Peace".

Of course, good communication is a necessary component of peace-- yet it is rarely found among the self-annointed purveyors of peace (remember the U.N. squabblers two stamps back).

But "Communications for Peace" isn't really just that, is it? When the Soviets tossed Sputnik into the sky, and the space race was on, "Communications for Peace" was number five or six on the Big List of Reasons. Because if the Soviets could send a basketball-sized object round and round the earth, they could send other things around the earth. Bad things.

The only natural response to this event was to figure out how to send our own bad things round and round the earth. The space race was just one of many battles being waged in the Cold War, and winning the Cold War was the prime directive. Sattelite TV is just a happy side benefit of the space race.

The sentiment "Communications for Peace," while noble and indeed a goodly thing, doesn't quite commemorate the significance of what was going on. It was really more like "Peace through Strength."

"Peace through Strength". That's kind of catchy. Someone should use that.