An Interplanetary Laser Communications System

caffiend666 writes "A news article at Yahoo states NASA is planning on testing the first laser-based interplanetary communications system on the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter to be launched in 2009. 'Unlike radio frequency signals that wash over the entire Earth, Fitzgerald and his colleagues will be shooting for a much smaller target - the southwestern corner of the United States.' Does this mean we will soon have telescopes outside of our homes soon to pick up high definition TV signals instead of our current 18 inch dishes?"

Comments

Re:Time to do the wash

[mfh]

You know, I said the same exact thing and was modded to -1 for doing so. This is interplanetary folks. The best way to get signals around earth now is through our own planetary/local signals or through wire/fiber. Going between planets, we'll be able to have one major feed or more, and the signals going through that system will feed to local systems using whatever works best at the time. The beauty of this is that there won't be the lengthy delays between messages, and continual improvements will make the range increase for larger file transfers or whatever.

Re:4.3 Gigabytes

[The Unabageler]

so for pluto,

5913 km / 0.3 km/s = 19710 s
19710s * 30mbit/s = 591.3 TB in transit. How about a raid of laser planet storage devices? And then give them full boxen and make a beowulf....sorry I had to add that last bit.