Space exploration - Applications, Benefits, Technology: Space visionaries in the early 20th century recognized that putting satellites into orbit could furnish direct and tangible benefits to people on Earth. For example, Arthur C. Clarke in 1945 described a way in which three satellites in orbit about 35,800 km (22,250 miles) above the Equator could relay communications around the globe. In this orbit, called a geostationary orbit, the satellites would have an orbital period equal to Earth’s rotational period and thus appear from the ground to be stationary in the sky. (For additional information on satellite orbits, see spaceflight: Earth orbit.) A report for the U.S. Army