The artificial satellite is a machine placed in orbit to relay signals and watch the Earth — a vantage point above the planet that rewired global communication, weather forecasting, war, and surveillance. From Sputnik's launch in 1957 through the dense constellations overhead today, satellites became the hidden infrastructure behind live television, the daily weather forecast, precision warfare, and the surveillance state, all drawing on the same god's-eye view of the planet.
On the night of October 4, 1957, a polished metal sphere about the size of a beach ball rose from a launch pad in Kazakhstan and began circling the Earth. It beeped. Anyone with a shortwave radio could hear it. The Soviet Union had placed the first artificial satellite in orbit, and in doing so handed the United States the most unsettling realization of the Cold War: the sky was no longer a barrier. An object made by people could now look down on the entire planet, pass over any city, cross any border without permission, and do it again every ninety minutes.