Comsat Legacy Foundation

Bulletin # 16

February 18, 2005


DEAR FRIENDS:

This is the sixteenth bulletin on progress by the Comsat Legacy Foundation.

ARCHIVES

Walt McKee and I delivered 18 boxes of Comsat films and tapes to Johns Hopkins this week bringing to 56 the total number of boxes of Comsat materials now in their hands.  The archivist, Margaret Burri, is temporarily without an assistant which is delaying somewhat the processing of the records we delivered in November.  She indicates that the McLucas papers are among those dealt with so far.  We yet need to deal with slides, photos, duplicate records and artifacts.  Much of our photo collection is already on line at our web site as you may have seen.

Scott Sacknoff of Space Business Archives was referred to us by Joe Pelton.  He is in the process of disposing of 320 boxes in their archives and his first set of materials was a collection of Intelsat reports from the earliest days.  I put him in touch with Johns Hopkins and these reports have been shipped there to be archived separate from the Comsat collection.  As he goes through his materials, Scott will inform us of any records which might be appropriate to include in the Comsat collection.  Also, I have connected Betty Edelson to Johns Hopkins to arrange for archiving Burt’s papers.

We will probably continue to receive contributions from private sources and some interesting early documents have recently been delivered by Ruth Berman and Lorrie Gray.

VIDEOS

Several tapes were selected for digitization at Clarksburg and are stored there in digital form.  Celluloid films represent the one medium which cannot be processed in Clarksburg and Hale Montgomery and Steve Teller have offered to subsidize the conversion of a few films.  Hale selected “Live via Early Bird” and the first Marisat film for work at the video lab recommended to us by the Smithsonian.

I am particularly excited by the Early Bird film which can be made available on DVD or VHS.  It is a 26 minute professionally produced film sponsored by Comsat and Macdonnell Douglas.  It includes footage of the opening ceremonies for transatlantic television with the voice of a much younger Walter Cronkite in the background.  Please inform me if you have an interest in owning a copy in either VHS or DVD which would be delivered in exchange for a donation to the Comsat Legacy Fund. 

HISTORY

As some of you may have heard, the owners of the Clarksburg property are considering its sale to developers.  Montgomery County is currently holding hearings on whether to declare it to be a historic site which should be preserved.     You may wish to contact Steve Teller ( teller@iotsystems.com ) if you would like to receive more detailed information on the situation.


Edward J. Martin
President
7122 Plantation Lane
Rockville, MD  20852

Telephone:     (301) 770-0984
Fax:          (301) 881-5726
E-mail:     edmartin752@aol.com