An Interplanetary Laser Communications System

Posted by timothy on Monday November 15, 2004 @05:27PM from the sharks-not-included dept.

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?"

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Re:4.3 Gigabytes by The+Unabageler · 2004-11-15 18:03 · Score: 1, Redundant

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.

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