The Interplanetary Internet

Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from SPACE.com about the Interplanetary Internet (IPN) is not science fiction. It is becoming a reality, Rich Gray reports. "The IPN would form a backbone connecting a series of hubs on or around planets, ships, and at other points in space. These hubs would provide high-capacity, high-availability Internet traffic over distances that could stretch up to hundreds of millions of miles." Gray adds that all the planets and satellites in our solar system have already Internet addresses and that NASA is already communicating with its earth-orbiting missions through its internal Deep Space Network. The rest of us will have to wait until at least 2005 when IPN-equipped satellites are launched. Check this column for more details. You also can read a previous Slashdot column on the same subject. "

Comments

think of the gamers man!

[pilybaby]

I think the lag when playing HL2 with someone on Mars would be too much to take.

Re:think of the gamers man!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, with the sort of timescales we're talking about here, you'd probably be playing Duke Nukem Forever.

I have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

all the planets and satellites in our solar system have already Internet addresses

So, whats the internet address for Uranus? http://ipn.myhomepage.ass ? or, .anus?

GREAT

[Evil Adrian]

That's all we need, is some fifteen-year-old DDoS-ing the Hubble.

Squatters

[Steve1952]

Bad news! Most of the planetary sites are occupied by squatters. For example, some snack food company is sitting on mars.com...

I've Said It Before And I'll Say It Again...

[PipianJ]

[luser@somebox luser]$ ping -c 4 www.pathfinder.mars

Pinging www.pathfinder.mars [178.223.52.43] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 178.223.52.43: bytes=32 time=2678674ms TTL=53
Reply from 178.223.52.43: bytes=32 time=2679146ms TTL=53
Reply from 178.223.52.43: bytes=32 time=2678608ms TTL=53
Reply from 178.223.52.43: bytes=32 time=2679568ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 178.223.52.43:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 60ms, Maximum = 183ms, Average = 114ms

That's nearly 44 minutes round trip for light, and that's only to Mars at opposition. Imagine how long it is to Pluto at opposition. What is it that they say? It was 20-30 hours round-trip to contact Pioneer 10?

Interplanetary chat rooms: patience required!

[HarveyBirdman]

[BigDuud has entered chat room #marssex]

BigDuud: Anyone here?
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: Just me it seems.
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: Wassup! I'm at Tycho City, Moon. Where you at?
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: Utopia Planita base, Mars.
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: Cool! Are you nekkid?
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: Yes, but only under my spacesuit.
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: Bummer.
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: Yeah. We had a failure in the Windows2150 installation, and it caused a pressure imbalance that blew out the mail seals. I was in the shower when it happened. I'm all wet and soapy in here.
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: How long before it's fixed?
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: Who knows? They admins are downloading the patch from the Redmond Arcology, but it's suposedly 50 billion terabytes for the copyright notice alone.
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: Bummer.
(20 minutes pass)
BarsoomGirl: This suit has a seismic vibrator, though. ;-)
(20 minutes pass)
BigDuud: Wicked! So, do you have big barsooms?

[Connection terminated. Link eclipsed by Phobos.]