Ever since the first satellites took to space, there has been talk of using them as radio communication links. This week the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that two-way communication via a satellite was probably accomplished for the first time by two 17-year-old radio hams.
Raphael Soifer is a blond, spectacled freshman at M.I.T. In 1958, while still a student at the high-rated Bronx High School of Science, he got interested in a paper by Professor John D. Kraus of Ohio State University. Dr. Kraus reported that a satellite speeding through the outer fringe of the atmosphere trails an ionized wake that...