Oceanscapes and spacescapes in North Atlantic communications

The decades following the Second World War saw significant advances for international telecommunications. In 1956, TAT-1, the first oceanspanning telephone cable, crossed the Atlantic, linking the USA, Canada and Britain. Six years later, in 1962, Telstar, one of the first active communications satellites, was launched by NASA, linking earth stations in the USA, Britain and France. The decades that followed saw the proliferation of two global telecommunication infrastructures: telephone cables in the ocean and communication satellites in orbit. In this chapter I focus on these two environmentally situated infrastructures through the activities of several organisations: AT&T, the British Post Office,