A Listener Recounts Spotting Satellites In The Sky With His Father in The Mountains of New Mexico

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Muniz tells the story of his first time seeing a satellite in the sky during a trip into the mountains of New Mexico.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
They're some of our favorites. Up next, a story from
a regular contributor, Richard Muniez. Today Richard shares with us
the story of a magical moment in his life when

(00:30):
he was young, his first time being a satellite.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Take it away, Richard, You stop and think about it.
It's really funny how memories work. I'm not saying funny,
ha ha. I'm saying funny strange. When I stop to
think about it. Before six years old, my memories are
they're kind of spotty at best, but there is stuff

(00:57):
that sticks out more than others, and that sticks out
more than some of the other ones. Is the first
time I ever recalled seeing a satellite. I wasn't even
five years old yet, and we were going into the mountains. Now,
when I talk about the mountains, what I'm talking about
here is a tract of land in northern New Mexico.

(01:19):
In years to come, we'd follow Highways seventeen up and
around Cumber's Pass and come in through a different road. Now,
this led up to our summer range, and this is
where we took our cattle in summer, but this time
we took the road up through osierw At the time,
it was nothing more than a large water tank for
the steam engines that used to move between Antonito and Shama.

(01:42):
The other thing I recall about Oser is the station itself.
At the time, it wasn't open, but in this particular memory,
when it happens, we'd started out for the mountains, and
it was already late in the day and it's been
very stormy. What this was was a family and extended
family trip and we were going to go up to
the mountains. We're going to say what we called the

(02:03):
green Cabin, pretty nice cabin. The reason we had his
name was guess what it was painted green. We as
I'd mentioned, it was pretty stormy. It had rained very heavily.
It was rained so heavily up in the mountains. Of fact,
we kind of borrowed our trip up into the mountains.
We had two wheel drive pickups. The soft mudd was
threatening to get them stuck, so unable to go forward,
unable to go back, we stopped and spent the night

(02:23):
at Osire. The old station was unlocked, so we took
refuge there. I recall everyone bringing in their beddy and
we found a corner to sleep in. A fire was
starting the old stove, and a mill was prepared. We
ate and everyone sat around talking. I liked listening to
the old timers talk. I always told such interesting stories.

(02:46):
I remember my old granny talking about coming out here
with the Mormon expansion. My grandfather talked about coming out
here as a boy from Lebanon. Well later that evening,
the drum cleared out and the skies opened up, washed
by the rain, the stars were hard and bright, and
I remember Echo is supposed to be passing over. I
remember someone said Echo. Yes, that balloon satellite they put

(03:07):
up a few weeks ago. So we all went out
into the night to look for it. As a four
year old boy, had no idea what an artificial satellite was. Oh,
I'd seen TV shows and stuff like that, So what
I was expecting to see was a full size nineteen
fifty style rocket thundering overhead. Of course, that's not what
I got. The Project Echo satellites were launched in nineteen

(03:29):
sixty and nineteen sixty four. The idea behind them was
one we take almost for granted today. Now, way back
in nineteen forty five, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark,
the same guy wrote two thousand and one, a space
Artistsey came up the idea of using satellites as a
means of communication. The following year they tried some experiments
using a more natural satellite, in this case our Moon,

(03:51):
to reflect microwaves for communications. Well, once Sputnik was launched,
Clark's ideas were right on the verge of become in reality.
Now the first shrill attempts at using this idea but
pretty simple. Put a big aluminized balloon up in space
and bounce the signals off that. Now, it took two
tries to get the first echo satellite up, the first

(04:12):
one on May thirteenth, nineteen sixty. Well, that satellite ended
up in the Atlantic. The next tip came a few
months later, this time on August twelfth. This time the
satellite settled into the orbit some thousand miles or so
above the Earth. So what we have here is one
hundred foot across aluminized balloon miles above the Earth catching
the sunlight. This made it a really easy target for
the eye of the spot. So we stepped down to

(04:34):
the cool mountain are and I remember I looked up
and there's the universe sprawled up before me. I almost
got dizzy looking up. Standing there on a loading platform
an h train station. I stood at the edge of infinity.
Knots and tangles of stars were overhead, and a ghostly
clouds stretched from horizon horizon, and stars of every color

(04:57):
and by the thousands blurred into it. I'd never seen
anything so glorious. You see the light from those stars.
I remember Dad saying, there's so far away light left
than before you were even born. They're so far away
they may not even be there anymore now. The idea
of the speed of light meant nothing to me. But
if they were that far away, then how far it
was far? And suddenly I felt very small and very

(05:20):
lost in it all. It thrilled me My cosmos had
just grown amazingly big, and I was part of something
so much bigger than me. Now, say, young kid, the
horizon is always incredibly close. As a child, my universe
ended at the mountains that ring in the sand Los Valley.
There was a little beyond it. I never put two
and two together yet and realized there was more to

(05:41):
my world than I knew, and now with a single sentence,
the universe had gotten very, very big for me. We
all appeared into the sky, each quietly searching for something. Finally,
after several minutes, someone pointed, there, there it is. I looked,
and here's a star moving quietly across the sky. I
watched to travel like some magical force among the stars

(06:01):
and that and used to come. I learned so well
the star move is so much quiet and dignity. It
amazed me. I remember it be several seconds writing remote
to breathe, so I watched the move. It flashed and
then it faded away into the night. And even at
four years old, there was a part of me that
wish I was up there riding along with it. Today

(06:22):
I've seen god knows how many satellites flying over, and
like that four year old boy, I still wish I
was along for the ride.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And a terrific job by Monty on the production of
that piece and the editing, And again a special thanks
to Richard Munez, who's a regular contributor here on our
American Stories. Check out Richard's blog at William alban A
lb A N dot WordPress, dot com and check out
Richard's other stories at our American Stories dot com. Just

(06:58):
look up Richard Munez and ni Z in the search bar.
He's got a great one on the first Black Lawman
in Colorado, the Russian Migjet, and many others. Richard Munez
story about a light in the sky in the beautiful
mountains of New Mexico. Here on our American Stories. Folks,

(07:31):
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(07:52):
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