August 12, 1960: New Communications Era

August 12, 1960 was hailed as a "triumphant day in the exploration of space" and "a new era in world communications." The cause for this celebration was a balloon, called Echo I, launched into space aboard a Thor-Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. News of the inflatable satellite would be hailed under a large headline in the next day's New York Times as "the forerunner of a new mode of communications by which messages and eventually television broadcasts will be relayed across oceans by way of satellites."