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802.11b Space Suits
Saint Aardvark writes "The BBC has an article here about WearSat, the new generation of space suits: embedded RISC processor, 802.11b networking, VGA heads-up display, and 1GB microdrive. I want one for my rec room."
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better use it or the aliens will have already won!
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
wow...never thought I'd see this day. not only is it a space-suit of the future, it's a post in a timewarp!
...be a real space marine! ;)
All we have to do now is to increase the signal range on the 802.11b standard, and we'd be able to hack those astronauts from Earth =)
You remember that scene in Naked Gun when Leslie Nielsen goes to the bathroom with the wireless mike on?
:)
Imagine how much worse it's going to be when you go to the bathroom with not only the mike, but the streaming webcam too...
If this device ends up running XP-Embedded, astronauts will need a way to contact Redmond to get an activation key ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
is plans for a cheap antena made from 1500 pringles cans...
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
RISC.
Sorry, x86ers, you're not cool enough...again.
We should get these for a few of our developers.
...would certainly cut down on the B.O.
It would probably be easier to convince them to wear these to work than to use soap and shampoo on a regular basis.
~dlb
...unsecure space suits, that can be easily cracked. Visions of astronauts doing "Eric Cartman"esk alien enduced dances.
As long as it doesn't run on embedded windows:
"AirPump.exe has generated errors and will be closed. An error log has been created."
The problem with 802.11b has always been, and will continue to be, its lack of general acceptance in the IT community. With everyone running in different directions, 802.11b gets lost in the dust. It's a weaker technology and will never be widely accepted as the standard.
http://www.davebrenninslaw.org
dave@davebrenninslaw.org
Can it run LINUX???
One of the big challenges was finding a way of fitting a display into an astronaut's helmet.
/.
"Using new technology, which is referred to as the microdisplay, we were able to fit a small active matrix liquid crystal display around an area where eye glasses would normally be worn," said Mr Schwartz.
This gives me hope that someday I'll be able to walk to the fridge and grab a coke without having to stop reading
Very fancy.
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
fp? 20 seconds?????
It appears that the people involved in this project seem to each be from the top of their respective fields. This means it won't run Windows. This could make mission communications easier. (As long as they don't waste all their time using the messaging features like many of us do at work) And let's face it, the space suit needs an upgrade, right. I wonder how long until Think Geek gets one?
I can see the point of the rest, but the microdrive seems like a waste. For one thing, how shielded are those suits? How much EM can magnetic media take? I can see the usefulness of say, a hud with schematics of circuits, or a map, or whatever displayed on it via the network, BUT, what on earth would you put on the microdrive? If you're taking photos, the drive goes in the camera, not the suit! But otherwise, I think it could be cool. Also, maybe those microoptical lcd glasses could be useful here?
I would think that they would go with a wireless networking standard that allows for greater distance.
In space no one can hear you scream...
if you are more than a few hundred yards away.
It's nice to have a small wearable tucked in some corner of a space suit to display stuff. But how do you get data into the thing? How do you use it? Imagine an astronaut attempting to use a mouse in zero-G! A keyboard is easier, but where would it go?
And if the thing just displays data sent to it over the LAN, why bother with the HD at all?
Solution to blink tags: wrap them in another blink tag, with a javascript delay loop, so they cancel each other out
Is it more secure?
-------
http://www.systematicerror.com/
I want one for my christmas-shopping!
--
\ Christian A Strømmen
The men who have upheld our freedom of speech, which includes 802.11b
cool
How much do they cost and can anyone order one? These suits aren't complete without a waste disposal unit that can easy fill and seal an empty pop can.
Yeah that'll be fun till some little kid with a old K Band satelite and a souped up 802.11 card gets the idea to start messing around. Houston we have a problem, some kid has downloaded 600 megs of pron to my harddrive, could you please a fix that... no hurry.
Okay....embedded processor- make mine a G4+
802.11? put an AirPort on the back.
VGA? no, make that a Macintosh heads up display.
1Gb Microdrive -- try a 5gb iPod.
That's what i want, get that WinTel peecee crap outta there.
we won't really be space travellin' till Apple makes space suits. they wont ship 'em till they're insanely great!
...Earthlink finds out that one of our astronauts is illegally sharing his wireless access with everyone in LEO.
Another article on that
XML causes global warming.
I thought that a large portion of the development on wearable computing was in the area of flexible logic boards. Given such flexible system could be woven into the fabric of the suit this would seem a far superior opion that would not require space on the already heavily populated chest and back.
It might even add to the insulating properties of the suit.
And for my comedy points...
does the space suit play mp3s?
I hope they don't run Windows. Otherwise the astronauts will just play solitaire during their space walks. : /
I claim this early post for Spain!
How do I get my Pringles can to track with the location of the shuttle or space station?
First 802.11 condom!
i guess some peoples dot bomb stocks didn't do all bad
How about security features? We sure a hell wouldn't want our space suits to get rooted! :) hehehehe!
this is actually pretty cool, but I was really surpised that they hadn't done it before... oh wlel, what am i saying, i suck
imaging a cluster of these :)
And here is a screenshot of the HUD.
It's amazing what they can do these days... :-)
I dunno... What do you wanna do?
Hal, open the pod bay doors.
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
Hal? Do you read me Hal
Hal, I have my space suit, you open the pod bay doors now or I will r00t your b0x0r with my 1337 5k1llZ!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
And in the news today two astonauts were lost today, their last communications were, "Forget the girder I'm almost level 21 in Everquest!"
This is not a sig
war orbiting
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
What does it matter what the IT community has accepted/is accepting? I don't think the space program is looking for a standard. These devices will be running on their own network no doubt.
rec room?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
RISC....not CISC.....the future finally comes to earth.
If Apple made space suits, they'd only come in very untasteful, bright colours
...a Beowulf cluster of these!
...Because they will already have to create some efficient and persistent way to connect to microsoft to get hotfixes/updates/massive exploit patches (all the time).
thanks for keeping our astrounauts alive. (a literal BSOD? scary?)
This will open doors to some very interesting advances.
:))
Seeing as how new breakthroughs in technology open roads to even newer developments (providing that the parent advancement doesn't flop.)
Perhaps this can be applied to the Military, Policing, Security and Fast Food!
Hou..., uh, Redmond, we have a problem.
Why bother.
one of them for christmas would be so cool
Nowadays, I read space.com and feel an overwhelming sense of depression. I see billions of tax dollars wasted on multimillion dollar toy space suits, and paying large salaries to Slashdot trolls and other function-free individuals.
NASA is a drain on the nation's economy, and we need to send them a clear message: shape up or ship out. We need to run them like the R&D division in a corporation: if they can't produce useful results, innovations, and profit within a few years, we need to start cutting projects and staff. I want to see NASA become synonymous with "technical progress" like it was when I grew up; right now, it is synonymous with "wasted tax money" and that is not a favorable label to have during such a terrible recession.
freebsd guy
Why is the "publications" page blank? Is my browser broken, or has nothing been published yet about WearSAT. Sounds pretty vaporous to me.
The only info in the BBC article was that they're putting computers in space suits with small eye displays. I could do that in a week -- what really matters is the software. The display mock-up looks interesting, but not much in depth info here-- can't wait to see what kind of environment they come up with.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
"[...featuring...] an embedded RISC processor, 802.11b networking, VGA heads-up display, and 1GB microdrive. "
I don't even know where to begin how to point out how collosally stupid this idea is.
1) Good luck using ANY heads-up display during spacewalk. The glare from Earth alone is enough to blind most astronauts. If you're doing your walk during the timeframe where the sun is present, now you've got two problems to worry about in the glare departments. See, kids, thats why we have radio communication. A heads up display would be effectively useless in such an environment.
2) What idiot decided that Joe Astronaut needs a power-consuming VGA display? You want fries with that? For cryin out loud, you're life depends on battery power while you're untethered. Gee, lets make a suit that needlessly takes power away from those annoying non-essential features like pumps for HEAT and OXYGEN...Jeezus, this is stupid.
3) Suppose you had superpowerful eyeballs capable of overcoming the glare, and a massive slip in the oversight commitee allowed you to go up there with your go-go-gadget space suit to try out your wattage eating heads-up display. Does it _really_ take a RISC processor to tell you how much air you have left, how much power you have left, and other critical information? Nope. This smacks of buzzword bingo, and stinks of collosal stupidity perhaps even moreso than items #1 and #2.
4) If you look at the HUD mock-up they cleverly whipped up in MS Paint, you'll notice that their display is predominantly taken up with a window showing "mission objectives". If you need to be reminded of what the hell you're doing up there, you don't belong in the suit in the first place!! Jesus!
5) A 1GB Microdrive. Well, thats lovely. Now what are you going to do with it...It eats more power than static DRAM, and the microdrive would have to be protected from radiation exposure. A 1GB Microdrive also infers an IDE controller, which infers even more onboard power-consuming crap succepible to radiation and power loss. Oh, and not to mention, the platter will get demagnetized within seconds.
5) You want OTHER crew members both onboard and on the ground to monitor your bio stats while you're working. There are plenty of stories of astronauts who having gone on spacewalks, freak out and start drifting off. The whole point of such an operation is that the people inside the craft help guide the person in the suit. You dont go zipping off leaving a post-it note on the hull saying "I'm gonna go take some pictures!!!! bbak in 30 min!"
I want to hold my head in disbelief that this crap made the front page on Slashdot at the expense of perhaps hundreds of other stories, let alone the fact that MIT is sponsoring this diarrhea.
And yes, thats how I really feel.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
could it be?
Hrm did anyone think of this perhaps:
::
Since they are just sort of prototyping these things to bid to NASA, they probably are just using this as a proof of concept sort of thing.
NASA owns tons of frequencies. In real live suits, they'd probably use packet radio technology that they've already proven and gotten comfortable with.
Note that NASA's new "better, faster, cheaper" motto does not extend to situations where human life is concerned. If these radios are intended to assist in monitoring astronaut's vitals or performing other mission critical missions in which failure could result in a loss of life, they will certainly not be used.
Hell without that nice atmosphere to protect them, you'd think they'd be a little bit smarter than to use such low power crap with such a bad SNR up there.
What is everyone's facination with 802.11 anyway? It's cool but it's not magic, folks. In fact, it kind of sucks. It''s five+ year old tech. It'd be nice if all this energy was put towards lobbying the FCC to open up the spectrum so consumers could start using higher powers and more spectrum. Did anyone say ultra-wideband? How about software-defined radio? You think 11mbps is fast, some of the technology that exists today can do 11gbps (and on low enough frequencies and powers that it is both effective and safe) yet because of the FCC, we just can't use it. oh well. sucks to your government.
:: JOIN US! POST AS AC AND MAKE THE MODERATORS DO THEIR DAMN JOB
dumb question (not really hoping for an answer :) ):
:) )
couldn't this 802.11 thing introduce some unwanted interferences will all the equipment already there (either once in space or just before going out). I guess they will have to go for the real tests relative to interferences, not just the consumer grades one (ya know, the one where when the product is FCC approved it means it will only kill you in 15 years of usage
Prost?????
it's not obvious from the diagram if they want to do that, and I'm too tired to read all the thing, but to me this seems like a bad idea.
Not only that but 802.11b sucks besides!
The LAST thing we need are astronauts floating around looking at all of the porn they hid on their microdrive...
"Ahh....nobody up here but you and me, Britney.."
Geez, I can just hear the comments now...
The spacesuits run $10-20 MILLION apiece? Good lord, you'd think they were made of gold, or something.
...a Beowulf Cluster of these?
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
Will the astronauts need glasses, obtain a hunchback and RSI after using one?
frosty post
The article says, "Modifying the existing suit is out of the question because each one costs between US$10m and US$20m."
Ooooh I've got a good idea! Let's make new ones with less robust technology, that peoples' lives depend on, and that will be even more expensive!
this article (5 may 2001) talks about 802.11b space suits over half a year ago.
I can see it now...
WarDriving (any city)
WarFlotilla (venice)
WarBalloonz
They still use soft suits in space that makes the astronaughts require pressure adjustment before EVA. They need to start using hard suits. No pressure adaptation times before EVA.
I believe NASA where researching new ideas that included hard suits.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
if you wear a tiny hard drive on/in your space suit and you are not anchored to anything, wouldnt the spinning disc inside try to rotate you in the opposite direction that its spinning?
if Windowz eXPee crashes the space suit will stop functioning
Too much of a slight jolt and poof, your $350 drive is now a miniature collection of plastic and metal. They now make 1gb CompactFlash cards - solid-state, no problems with jitter... of course, they cost about 3x as much, but hey, we're talking an activity that doesn't treat mechanical failure with much tolerance.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
Considering that these modifications cost between US$10m and US$20m per suit above the initial cost of the suit itself (which is pretty amazing because the suits are $12m! - maybe one of these prices is off), you'd think that for this kind of money, you could pressurize your rec room. This will make games like twister much easier to play.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Oh yeah, great idea, gives BSOD a whole new meaning. Don't worry it will reboot before you run out of Oxygen.
Besides, it is just a ripoff of "Have Space Suit, will Travel."
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Did anyone else notice one of the test rigs was a compaq ipaq running (it looks like) win ce or whatever the hell they are calling it now?
Haven't they had enough problems with M$ operating systems?
What would happen to the astronauts if their space suit was cracked by a kid with a beefed up receiver on the ground? Now I know the 802.11b standard doesn't broadcast that far, but it is conceivably possible that, say, another country, could build a huge ass wireless receiver, light up an astronaut, and hack his system, and take total control of his 'desktop.'
Maybe they'll put a new show on cable: Remote control spaceman battles! Now on Comedy Central!
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Ah, roger that AlphaOne. Hold for instructions.
Houston, I'm getting cold. I thought you said the heaters were autonomous.
cckckckkc bzzt...
Houston?
OK, AlphaOne, we have a solution. Windows/SAT will automatically reboot and set defaults. Can you hold your breath for four minutes? OVER.
Roger that, Houston. I'm getting a bit light headed, though. Three times is enough. Can I go back to the ship? Please? OVER.
Negative, AlphaOne. The bird's USB auto-docking mechanism is offline for a bit. Stay put and hold for suit reboot. OVER & OUT.
(Shit, I'm cold.)
What happens if the LCD screen blanks out? The astronaut will not be able to see through the screen, NOR will he or she be able to remove the glasses from his or her face.
We better hope this is NOT run by WIndows, otherwise some poor astronaut is going to float off into space and suffocate with only a BSOD filling his field of view.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It appears that this is a remote controlled scripting tool of some sort. There's a guy in the shuttle / Space station, who does all the keyboard work. The EVAer sees the appropriate page from the manual, some instructions (probably from the same manual) and a bunch of suit / bio-function monitoring icons.
like I said, RTFA