Satellites

The first satellite Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, at low orbit barely above the Earth's atmosphere. Sputnik was not used for two-way communications since it could only transmit a signal to Earth. Many satellites followed Sputnik into low-Earth orbit. In 1960 the first communication satellite ECHO was launched by the United States. ECHO connected users by bouncing radio signals off its surface but it was unable to transmit radio signals itself.

However in 1962 active satellites TELSTAR and RELAY were launched. These satellites received radio signals from Earth and amplified the signals before re-transmitting them back to Earth. The first satellite to use geostationary orbit for communications was called Syncom and was launched in 1963. Syncom weighed 78 pounds and was 28 inches in diameter. Geostationary satellite orbits the Earth at a much higher altitude than low-Earth orbit satellites.

The concept of geostationary satellites used for communications is credited to an article written in 1945 by Arthur C. Clarke, RAF electronics officer and member of the British Interplanetary Society, in the British radio magazine Wireless World. The article described the use of manned satellites in 24-hour orbits high above the world's land masses to distribute television programs.

http://history.nasa.gov/satcomhistory.html

The start of Astronomy

By taking our sense of sight far beyond the realm of our forebears' imagination, these wonderful instruments, the telescopes, open the way to a deeper and more perfect understanding of nature.
—René Descartes, 1637

The first telescope was used in the Netherlands in 1608. They attempted to patent the device with the description of it being that it "aided in seeing faraway things as though nearby". The government denied their patent, stating it was too easy to copy. The first telescope had a convex and a concave lens in a tube.

A drawing of what the first telescope looked like can be seen below.

Galileo Galilei did some upgrades to the telescope in 1609 and on. His telescopes were of a more powerful magnification and very popular. Observing space through his telescopes gave the rise to the thinking that the planets circled around the sun. His telescopes used a concave eyepiece lens and a convex objective lens.

All telescope makers faced the difficulty of finding glass for the lenses that was pure and without iron impurities which caused a green tinge when looking through the scope.

Seeing therefore the Improvement of Telescopes of given length by Refractions is desperate, I contrived heretofore a Perspective by Reflexions, using instead of an Object-glass a concave metal.
—Newton, Opticks, 1704

Newton designed an even better telescope and presented it to England's Royal Society in 1672. This telescope had the capability of a magnification of about 40.