Telstar's communications legacy

Around 50 years ago, launching something into space to bolster our ability to beam messages around the world was an absurdity.Today its considered to be commonplace and in fact a nessesity for our high speed internet access future. 

This whole track of innovation started with one satellite known as Telstar. 

July 10 marked the 50^th anniversary of the Telstar satellite, the first communications array that was used to boost television and mobile signals. You can see the launch video below.

Today's infographic is a quirky look at just how far we've come. It's a graphic from Netorama showing how many satelittes each country has in orbit.