DEAR FRIENDS:
This is the thirteenth bulletin on progress by the COMSAT Legacy Foundation.
ORGANIZATION
We are in the process of formalizing the establishment of the Board of Directors
for the Foundation.
ARCHIVES
The Deed of Gift Agreement with Johns Hopkins University has been executed. In
his acceptance letter, Dean Tabb anticipates that the COMSAT collection will be
found to be useful by students, including those at the School for Advanced
International Studies, faculty and outside researchers. Information about it
will be posted in their on-line catalog and in two major international
bibliographic databases, OCLC and RLIN. They will also submit a brief
description of it to relevant history of science and technology list serves and
journals.
This past Friday, with the help of Walt McKee and Linda Brobst, work began in preparing the first shipment for Johns Hopkins. This will include, as a minimum, a single set of COMSAT Annual Reports, a complete set of press releases and one set of the bound volumes containing the 44 interviews conducted around 1985 for the COMSAT History Project. A second complete set will be retained for now in Clarksburg. For some reason, there is a third copy of the interview with George Lawler. A list of the interviewees will be sent to any of you on request. Future work will begin with culling out duplicates of the COMSAT newspapers, magazines and CTRs so that only a single set will be sent to the archives, at least at the outset.
MUSEUMS/EXHIBITS
On July 19, I met with Dr. Martin Collins, Curator for Space History at
Smithsonian Air & Space and Joe Pelton accepted my invitation to join us.
Collins made a number of points. The prospect for a major satellite
communications exhibit at the Udvar-Hazy is not very bright. Udvar-Hazy is not
considered to be a museum but rather a storage location open to the public.
Therefore, the displays at History and Technology and Air and Space are unlikely
to be moved there. On the question of a long term loan of Early Bird F-2 from
Intelsat, he stated that the Smithsonian is not interested in loans, only
donations. He and Joe Pelton agreed to identify other museums that might be
more enthusiastic about such a display. He showed some interest in our EMMY and
the Charyk model collection but even more interest in our video collection. I
have put him in touch with Hale Montgomery who has furnished him with an
inventory. I am hoping that the Smithsonian may have some interest in helping
us with our digital processing. We agreed to keep the lines of communication
open. While there, I noticed a small satellite communications exhibit involving
Intelsat and Iridium.
Ed Martin
Edward J. Martin
President
7122 Plantation Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Telephone: (301) 770-0984
Fax: (301) 881-5726
E-mail:
edmartin752@aol.com