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Issue
No. 8, Fall 2005
Welcome
to Issue No.8 of the Online Journal
of Space Communication that gives special attention
to the country of Indonesia.
Indonesia
was an early user of satellite communication. As a
young SE Asian island nation whose territories stretched
over great distances, the satellite infrastructure
was important for national integration, including
the adoption of a single national language, the building
of a national identity, and to carry out the purposes
of government, education and business.
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Our Guest Editor is Sukarno Abdulrachman, former Indonesian
Director General of Post and Telecommunications and
Ambassador to Turkey. Remaining active in public affairs,
Pak Sukarno is currently the Chairman of the Board
of Professions and Associations of the Indonesian
Infocom/ICT Society (MASTEL), after serving as its
President for 6 years, and Commissioner with satellite
provider PT Asia Cellular Satellite and PT Pasifik
Satelit Nusantara. To prepare this Issue of the Journal,
Pak Sukarno assembled an editorial team consisting
of Indonesian professionals and scholars. A supporting
editorial team was also established at Ohio University
consisting of three Indonesian Ph.D. students under
the direction of the Journal's General Editor Prof.
Dr. Don Flournoy.
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No.8 is our first completely bi-lingual issue,
published in both English and in the Indonesian
language. This project has been challenging not
only because of the distances involved, the opposite
time zones and struggles with each other's language,
the uniqueness of the subject matter required
a lot of digging into archives, interviewing of
historic players and thinking about how to best
tell this story to a global audience online.
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We
are pleased with the result. For the first time, persons
from any country can learn about the origins of space
communication over Indonesia. Online viewers can see
the role that satellites have played, and continue
to play, in Indonesian national development.
Here
is an example of what online publishing does best
because 1) our Journal makes information publicly
available that is rarely accessible in electronic
form and 2) translates often technically intimidating
information into a more user-friendly form. In this
case, neither language or ocean distances or national
boundaries need serve as barriers to the sharing of
knowledge.
As
our reader, please note that this is not a static
publication; content can be added to the Journal and
the existing content can be updated as needed. If
you have a piece of research or a critical perspective
you wish to share that relates to the topic, please
communicate with us by sending an email to the Guest
Editor at:
Ir. Sukarno Abdulrachman,
Masyarakat Telematika Indonesia (MASTEL)
Jl. Terusan Hang Lekir I / No. 25
Jakarta 12220 - INDONESIA
Phone: +62 21 7221016, 72801319
Fax.: +62 21 7267931
http://www.mastel.or.id
E-mail: s_abdulr@jakarta.wasantara.net.id
or s_abdulr@psn.co.id
or
contact the Editor at
Don M. Flournoy,
Prof.
Director, Institute for
Telecommunications Studies
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701
tel:740-593-4866 fax:740-593-9184
don.flournoy@ohio.edu
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