A second U.S. patent was granted to one of the earliest African-American inventors, Henry Blair, a free man of Glenross, Maryland, for a cotton seed planter (No. 15). His first patent was for a corn planter (14 Oct 1834, No. X8447). Blair was born in Maryland about 1807 and lived until 1860. He was a successful farmer whose inventions met a need to increase efficiency in farming. His patents were signed with a simple "X" because he had not learned to read or write. Henry Blair was the second African-American to hold a patent. For some time he had been regarded as the first, until it became better known that the first African-American on record to be granted a patent was Thomas Jennings for a "dry-scouring" cleaning process (3 Mar 1821 No. X3306).

President Kennedy signed the Satellite Act. Congress thus stated that it was to be the policy of the U.S. "to establish, in conjunction and in cooperation with other countries, as expeditiously as practicable a commercial communications satellite system, as part of an improved global communications network, which will be responsive to public needs and national objectives, which will serve the communication needs of the United States and other countries, and which will contribute to world peace and understanding." The service was to sensitive to meeting the needs of economically less developed countries. Control of international satellite communications was given to a new private corporation called the Communications Satellite Corporation or Comsat.