Space Fact #15: 16 Nations Built This Space Station
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Sixteen nations, including America, participated in building the International Space Station. (Conclusion in W. Henry Lambright, ed., Space Policy in the 21st Century.)
The Gravity Well
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from the well
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It really wasn’t that long ago when the two greatest superpowers were vying to put satellites into space. Now, 50 nations have their own satellites in low Earth orbit. If you’re a Thailand, say, you can call Space Systems/Loral, a Canadian-owned company based in Palo Alto, California, and tell them you want to put a satellite into geostationary orbit for television broadcasting or military communications. You can have the thing in orbit 25,000 miles above Earth within two years.
