# Reagan Remembered for Sat TV Contributions



## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Within the space business, former President Ronald Reagan is best known for his Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as "Star Wars." But Reagan, who passed away in California during the weekend, also signed into law key legislation for the satellite TV industry.

According to industry history books, Reagan in 1984 signed "The Cable Communications Policy Act," which included Section 705, a provision legalizing private reception of unscrambled satellite television programming. It was in the 1980s that the big dish C-Band system became popular with the early-adopter/techie types as well as those without a cable connection.

However, during Reagan's second term, satellite TV encountered a serious piracy problem. To combat the issue, General Instrument announced plans for the VideoCipher II Plus system, and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association established an anti-piracy task force.

Also, in 1988, the president signed into law the Satellite Home Viewer's Act, which established a copyright license for the delivery of TV broadcast signals and toughened penalties for theft of satellite signals.

Reagan passed away at his home in California Saturday. This week, there will be remembrances of the former president in Washington, D.C., and at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

http://www.skyreport.com (Used with permission)


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## rocatman (Nov 28, 2003)

His adminstration every year zeroed out funding for NASA's Advanced Communication Technologies Satellite that significantly aided in the developed of DBS technologies. Fortunately, members of Congress put funding back in the budget.


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## BuckeyeChris (Apr 20, 2004)

rocatman said:


> His adminstration every year zeroed out funding for NASA's Advanced Communication Technologies Satellite that significantly aided in the developed of DBS technologies. Fortunately, members of Congress put funding back in the budget.


Would you please cite your source for this statement?


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## Evil Capserian (Jul 28, 2003)

Aww, Now why you go say such negative things about the guy after he's dead. Couldn't you have said it while he was alive so that he could have a chance to respond to such allegations?


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

As we learned from another poster last week we should not trust web sites or the liberal media. They might have an agenda. It si better to trust the recollections of individual posters.


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## rocatman (Nov 28, 2003)

BuckeyeChris said:


> Would you please cite your source for this statement?


Being a NASA employee who was highly involved in the launch of this satellite, my sources are the Reagan administration's budget requests for NASA that did not include funding for the satellite project. The rationale that I was told at the time was it was considered coporate welfare. I guess it was the wrong corporate welfare since during the Reagan adminstration, the prime contractor was RCA, a competitor to G.E. Reagan had signficant ties to G.E., being their corporate sponsor on T.V. for a few years before he went into politics. Right before he left office, G.E. bought out RCA's satellite business. G.E. later sold their satellite business to Martin Marietta who later merged with Lockhead.
I also was told that the RCA facility that the satellite was being built was in a House Democrat's district. The Advanced Communication Technology Satellite was launched from the Shuttle in 1993 with a planned 2 year mission. It was just shutdown a few months ago, nearly nine years beyond its planned life. It did not quite outlive the president that tried to abort it.


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

What they really need to do now is shut down the whole Shuttle program.


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

Geronimo said:


> As we learned from another poster last week we should not trust web sites or the liberal media. They might have an agenda. It si better to trust the recollections of individual posters.


Ok, I agree. We should trust all the websites like this one http://www.moontruth.com/ . I guess we never landed on the moon according to this.


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## BuckeyeChris (Apr 20, 2004)

rocatman said:


> Being a NASA employee who was highly involved in the launch of this satellite, my sources are the Reagan administration's budget requests for NASA that did not include funding for the satellite project. The rationale that I was told at the time was it was considered coporate welfare. I guess it was the wrong corporate welfare since during the Reagan adminstration, the prime contractor was RCA, a competitor to G.E. Reagan had signficant ties to G.E., being their corporate sponsor on T.V. for a few years before he went into politics. Right before he left office, G.E. bought out RCA's satellite business. G.E. later sold their satellite business to Martin Marietta who later merged with Lockhead.
> I also was told that the RCA facility that the satellite was being built was in a House Democrat's district. The Advanced Communication Technology Satellite was launched from the Shuttle in 1993 with a planned 2 year mission. It was just shutdown a few months ago, nearly nine years beyond its planned life. It did not quite outlive the president that tried to abort it.


Well, I don't know whether you are telling the truth or not. Being anonymous on the Internet you can pretty much say anything you want without having to worry about anyone fact checking your statements. You seem knowledgeble about some things you say but you make inferences based on things you heard. There could have been a lot of reasons why this project wasn't funded at the time that you were not privy too.

Politics is full or pork and unfortunately not all good ideas get funded.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

mainedish said:


> Ok, I agree. We should trust all the websites like this one http://www.moontruth.com/ . I guess we never landed on the moon according to this.


If I or anyone else had ever cited that one your commetn would be releavant. Since no one has it is just another illustration of your tactics.


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## rocatman (Nov 28, 2003)

BuckeyeChris said:


> Well, I don't know whether you are telling the truth or not. Being anonymous on the Internet you can pretty much say anything you want without having to worry about anyone fact checking your statements. You seem knowledgeble about some things you say but you make inferences based on things you heard. There could have been a lot of reasons why this project wasn't funded at the time that you were not privy too.
> 
> Politics is full or pork and unfortunately not all good ideas get funded.


I would agree that it is easy to make anonymous statements on the Internet and yes some things I stated were things I heard because there is no way I would have first hand knowledge of the rationale for decisions. Some of my sources within NASA were strong Reagan supporters who were not happy with him at the time. If you wanted to do some fact checking, you could do some research on the Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) and also dig up the Reagan adminstration's budgets for NASA. (By the way seeing that you are from Ohio, ACTS was managed out of the Lewis Research Center, now the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio) You could also see who the congressmen were that sponsored amendments to the NASA budget in those years to restore funding for ACTS. You will find that at least one was a Democrat from New Jersey where ACTS was built. I also believe there were some Republicans in Congress who also strongly supported funding for ACTS. You could also research Reagan's connections to G.E. in the 1950's as well as the corporate mergers/buyouts that I mentioned.

I should also mention that many folks at NASA believe that the Reagan White House applied significant pressure on NASA to launch the Challenger so that the teacher in space would be in orbit during his State of the Union address.


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## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

NASA has done some important work that has provided us with great technological advancements. However, when given the choice of letting a private corporation or a taxpayer-funded agency develop satellites that have consumer impact, I'd prefer the corporation do it. NASA wasn't the only group capable of handling such a task.

As for the line about Reagan being responsible for the death of McAuliffe (which it's evident that you're trying to do), that's a desperate connection to make. The part of the rocket booster that failed could have failed on any previous mission. Hate the man if you like, but don't insult our intelligence by making such baseless allegations. Shame on you. If you don't like some of his policies, say so and back them up with facts. We're all adults here and can discuss things logically even though we may not agree on everything. But that accusation is just lame and unnecessary.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

"Go Fever" from all over NASA is what ultimately led to the Challenger disaster. Ignored warnings and all....


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## rocatman (Nov 28, 2003)

durl said:


> NASA has done some important work that has provided us with great technological advancements. However, when given the choice of letting a private corporation or a taxpayer-funded agency develop satellites that have consumer impact, I'd prefer the corporation do it. NASA wasn't the only group capable of handling such a task.
> 
> As for the line about Reagan being responsible for the death of McAuliffe (which it's evident that you're trying to do), that's a desperate connection to make. The part of the rocket booster that failed could have failed on any previous mission. Hate the man if you like, but don't insult our intelligence by making such baseless allegations. Shame on you. If you don't like some of his policies, say so and back them up with facts. We're all adults here and can discuss things logically even though we may not agree on everything. But that accusation is just lame and unnecessary.


In regards to your first paragraph, certainly NASA wasn't the only group capably of building ACTS but I do not believe there was any corporation at the time that wanted to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to prove out technologies that may not pay off financially. This is where a government organization like NASA can provide a significant return on an investment in taxpayers dollars. As you should have noted in my previous post, most of the hundreds of millions of dollars of work was contracted out to RCA/GE/Lockheed Martin and also included Motorola. In addition, some military communication satellites utilize the ACTS technology as well.

In regards to the second paragraph, you are correct I have should have provided some references but I think you read too much into what I posted previously. The following link with an excerpt below confirms my statement. I can provide additional references if you like but I think you would learn more if you did the research yourself. Obviously my supposed "allegations" are not baseless and my supposed "accusation" is not lame. In fact today I polled six other NASA employees and all six had heard about the White House pressure to launch Challenger.

http://www.me.utexas.edu/~uer/challenger/chall3.html

"After investigation, there is some evidence suggesting that there was pressure from the White House for this particular Challenger launch. The day of the accident, speculation about pressure from the White House to have the Challenger launched before Reagan's State of the Union address, was denied by NASA officials. However, Richard Cook, the former NASA budget analyst, contended in a 137-page report that the reason NASA managers overruled Thiokol's engineers was politically motivated. He claims that the President wanted to mention the teacher in space in his State of the union message ["Bell," 1987]."

In regards to the solid rocket booster failing, the extremely cold temperatures for Florida on the day of the launch was a significant contributor to the o-ring seal failure in the solid rocket motor that resulted in the accident. This is well documented in the Rogers Commission report. The Challenger accident almost certainly would not have happened if the launch did not occur on that extremely cold day. Certainly the seals on the solid rocket motors were a weak point in the design and NASA redesigned them after Challenger but the fact that the launch occurred outside the lower temperature design constraint of the seals was the reason the seals failed.

So shame on you for not doing at least some rudimentary research on the Challenger accident and accusing me of making baseless accusations. This 
despite the fact that you have the convenience of the internet at your disposal.


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

rocatman said:


> In regards to your first paragraph, certainly NASA wasn't the only group capably of building ACTS but I do not believe there was any corporation at the time that wanted to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to prove out technologies that may not pay off financially. This is where a government organization like NASA can provide a significant return on an investment in taxpayers dollars. As you should have noted in my previous post, most of the hundreds of millions of dollars of work was contracted out to RCA/GE/Lockheed Martin and also included Motorola. In addition, some military communication satellites utilize the ACTS technology as well.
> 
> In regards to the second paragraph, you are correct I have should have provided some references but I think you read too much into what I posted previously. The following link with an excerpt below confirms my statement. I can provide additional references if you like but I think you would learn more if you did the research yourself. Obviously my supposed "allegations" are not baseless and my supposed "accusation" is not lame. In fact today I polled six other NASA employees and all six had heard about the White House pressure to launch Challenger.
> 
> ...


I guess we should blame Bush for the other shuttle Columbia. And it was headed to Florida so I am sure Jeb Bush had something to do with it. I will contact Michael Moore.


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## rocatman (Nov 28, 2003)

mainedish said:


> I guess we should blame Bush for the other shuttle Columbia. And it was headed to Florida so I am sure Jeb Bush had something to do with it. I will contact Michael Moore.


No, a major portion of the blame IMHO falls on the shoulders of Dan Goldin, the former NASA adminstrator appointed by the first Bush but kept around by Clinton. He did most of his damage under Clinton when there was the big push by both parties in Wahington to balance the budget. I believe that was part of the long forgotten Republican Contract on America. Of course a balanced budget could have been accomplished much easier if it wasn't for the long forgotten S&L crisis that was created by a Reagan adminstration initiative that cost the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Since you brought up the Bushes, when do you think was the first time George W. Bush visited the Johhnson Space Center in Houston, Texas? Remember he was the Texas governor for eight years and Houston is the city that his father identified as his home. The Johnson Space Center also provides over 25,000 jobs both civil servants and contractors in and around Houston. The answer of course is at the memorial service for the Columbia astronauts in 2003. Jeb Bush, governor of Florida has a slightly better record for visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a Shuttle launch. It took him only three years after being governor to go see a Shuttle launch. I believe there are a great many Americans who would love to see a Shuttle launch if they had the oppotunity and in fact there has been a long waiting list to get on the Kennedy Space Center for a shuttle launch even when shuttles were launching somewhat regularly. I guess one could assume Jeb doesn't have a lot of interest in NASA or perhaps he was too busy fixing an election.

Just keep this in mind the next time "W" talks about NASA and his Exploration Initiative and expresses his interest in the Space Program. He always seems to struggle to keep from yawning when NASA is talked about.


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## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

Oh, poor ignorant me. I should not have pretended to be enlightened when I knew I could fail so miserably. Oh well, I'm a glutton for punishment so here I go again.

You stated "certainly NASA wasn't the only group capably of building ACTS but I do not believe there was any corporation at the time that wanted to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to prove out technologies that may not pay off financially. This is where a government organization like NASA can provide a significant return on an investment in taxpayers dollars."

So a corporation wouldn't risk the investment dollars because there was no guarantee that it would pay off, but NASA CAN provide a significant return if they use my money? Corporation can't, NASA can. Uh....ok. Let me invest in NASA somehow, please!!! If they can get a return where a corporation can't, I'm ready to throw my whole portfolio behind them.

O-ring failure. So I suppose here's what happened. Reagan wanted the shuttle up in space, but NASA told him, "Mr. President, if we launch the O-Rings will crack due to the cold temperatures and put the astronauts at risk!" But Reagan shot back, "I don't care about the O-rings, just get that bird up in space NOW!" Reluctantly NASA allowed the shuttle to launch knowing that they were signing the death warrants of each astronaut on board. Ah...it's so clear now. Reagan must have wanted the astronauts to die so that he could give a good funeral speech. You're right. I can't believe I didn't see this before. If NASA knew the mission would fail, they wouldn't have let the bird fly. It took a lot of investigating to determine what went wrong so they must not have foreseen the problem.

Now on to Bush and NASA. I recall being upset at Bush for saying that we should proceed with plans to send astronauts to Mars. (Sounds like an interest in space exploration to me.) I think it's a waste of money, but he seems excited about spending money on NASA. But if you take this tidbit out of the equation, then I guess you could make a case that he doesn't care about NASA. Heck, if we're just going to ignore certain things that people say, you can draw all kinds of conclusions.

Anyway, I don't like having to perpetuate heated discussions but sometimes you just have to stand up for people or ideas. Reagan wasn't a perfect president and Bush isn't either (Bush is much further from perfect in my opinion) so please don't assume I'm a torch-bearer from a political party. I know some people hate Reagan and some hate Bush (and some people hate Clinton) but when you let the hatred taint your thinking and your analytic skills, it's time to take a step back and regroup. You look at facts and make decisions from there. No one should look for facts that fit in to their hatred.

My apologies to my fellow forum members for letting this thread deviate from it's original purpose. It won't be a habit.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

durl said:


> ...when you let the hatred taint your thinking and your analytic skills, it's time to take a step back and regroup. You look at facts and make decisions from there. No one should look for facts that fit in to their hatred.


Well said, durl. Unfortunately, there is a certain element here that seeks to inject their hateful political agenda into every thread.



> My apologies to my fellow forum members for letting this thread deviate from it's original purpose. It won't be a habit.


No need to apologize. This well-intended thread was diverted to a character assassination long before your first post. It's a shame that we can't have a reasoned discussion anymore without the Reagan and Bush haters spewing their putrid venom all over the place. :shrug:


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