Slashdot Mirror
NASA Plans Lunar Mobile Phone Network
If NASA and the British National Space Centre succeed in their 'MoonLite mission' you won't be able to say, "In space no one can hear your ringtone." They plan on building a satellite system/phone network that would provide full four-bar signal coverage for colonists living in the base NASA wants to build at the south pole of the moon after 2020.
A couple of hundred thousand miles away is a lot of roaming.
$20+ a meg and $5 a text and $100 for 60 min of talk time
Great. The Moon will have better coverage than my current Sprint plan. I bet their data plan will be cheaper too.
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
noone can hear you now!
Monstar L
There's only going to be four bars to provide coverage on the moon?
It had better be a small colony, then. Or they'd better be really big bars, hopefully without annoyingly trendy kitsch, and hopefully with some really good whiskey.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
would there be an audible lag time for calls like this? I am too lazy to do the math.
Unless you want to sell AnyTime Lunar Minutes to other countries that would already be there.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
GSM or CDMA?
(I had to ask)
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I wonder how long it takes your brain to adapt to talking to somebody when there's a 1-second+ delay each way? I've had conversations via satellite that seemed to have about a 1/2 second round-trip delay, and it was annoying as hell for the first few minutes.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
He'll delay Constellation for five years (pdf link, go to the last page), which will result in layoffs for all the people we'd need to get to the moon, and then we'll have to go try to re-hire them. Meanwhile the designs are being done now, so the plans will just sit for 5 years going out of date. Brilliant. And what will the money be used for? Saving no child left behind. Yes, let's dump more money in to education, that will fix it.
Let's see who trumps this one by offering a 5 bar service for Mars.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Dammit. I just heard yesterday that Verizon has completely run out of places to have that guy ask if the person on the other end of the line can hear him now.
NASA, you have just brought us at least another two months of pain.
We're the only provider on the planet my friend.
;)
But, we do offer the Android. Not the google one, a real one
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
This is more a satellite network for sensor uplink/downlinks on the Moon's south pole.
similar to the Inmarsat network on Earth.
Data throughput in the MoonLite system would range from up to 3kbps for the downlink and up to 2kbps for the uplink.
I mean the fact that Apollo had a video uplink doesn't mean NASA had plans for a TV network on the moon.
This is great, I'll be able to place a call on the moon but I still can't place one in my house.
The moon colonists will be able to the exploding cell phone batteries to provide thrust for the return voyage. Brilliant!
Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
I'm sure the engineers behind the concept are thinking in terms of watts per sq meter, or whatever unit is used to express the actual amount of signal that will be available to the future colonists. And I guess "bars" is a nice, non-technical term, like "Size of Texas" and "Volume of the Library of Congress".
But at least I can look up the size of Texas and the volume of the LoC, and I can even take a guess as to the length of a Fortnight. "Bar" is an utterly meaningless and arbitrary measurement. Heck, my phone shows FIVE bars. Does that mean I have any better reception than someone who hacked together a DSP and a SIM card and gave it a red/green LED telltale?
AT&T and their ubiquitous advertising -- I'm sucked into it too, looking for rising bar metaphors like a teenager looking for the Bunny symbol on the dog-eared cover of his dad's Playboy. When NASA rolls out the system, they'll need to be more even-handed. In addition to the AT&T "bars of service", they should ask "Can you hear me now?" for Verizon, "Where you at?" for Boost, and "No, you may NOT tap our customers' phones" for Quest.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Do we currently have satellites orbiting the moon? Or would these be the first satellites for our main satellite?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Seems like they are putting the cart before the horse...
Now the Moon will another place I can't hide from the ex.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
As soon as there's any hint of a mobile phone mast getting installed all the NIMBY's start moaning, writing to their MP's, holding protests and petitioning the phone company.
If there is life on other planets, all we have to do to find it is to announce that someone will errect a mobile mast - then just wait for the protests from the aliens. No protests means we are truly alone, afterall.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
UK has been sitting out of the manned missions and are now looking at how to get in on the game. They were talking about building units for the ISS, but that really seems like a waste. Far better for them to focus on doing things that others have not done, or have not done decently. It would be interesting to see if they would pursue such items as a fuel depot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
wonderful! another giant black hole to pour tax $$$ into
It's a base station!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Has any candidate committed to funding it? I haven't heard anyone talking up NASA lately. McCain said we may have a military presence in Iraq for another 100 years, which would tie up a fair amount of money - and don't forget he just made a Bush41-style "no new taxes" pledge this week.
layoffs for all the people we'd need to get to the moon, and then we'll have to go try to re-hire them
I don't know who else is hiring these people right now - after all there is hardly anyone currently working who can claim experience with lunar missions. While I wouldn't want to see them lose their jobs any more than anyone else, I wouldn't think we'd have to worry greatly about competition for lunar work.
the plans will just sit for 5 years going out of date
Considering some of the work with propulsion and energy, I think another 5 years to wait on the plans might not be all that bad.
And what will the money be used for? Saving no child left behind
There aren't many choices on this issue, really. Considering Bush's "no child left behind" was absurdly underfunded when it was passed, there are pretty much only two choices:
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I mean what's the point of being a colonist if your in-laws can still phone you ?
Oh, I so hope that it's ATT so that when I move there to be a colonist I can bring my iPhone! That would be so totally cool!
Three Squirrels
Imagine 4 of these babies in an AT&T/Cingular commercial.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
NO, ITS SHIT!
Sorry, had to be done.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
we took a car to the moon to look for moon babes. now we can get their phone numbers!
i mean, when you answer the phone, don't you have to take your space hat off? isn't that bad?
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
I have the Ted Kennedy phone coverage plan... they claim "more bars everywhere".
Kinda retro... You'da thunk that they'd hook the the moon up with internet and just use VOIP.
Houston: Where are you? Why arn't you on IM?
Astronaut: I'm in ur base, dialing into ur network
4 bars on the moon?! somehow, I know I'm getting screwed when I would get better service on the moon than I would at my house.
I sincerely hope that the "mobile phone network" concept is the result of bad journalism rather than bad thinking. There are historical reasons for the development of telcom concepts in their current form; but the idea of transplanting them to an area not bound by legacy infrastructure is just pathetic. Are we still going to be separating "voice" and "data" in space? Will "SMS" still be a special kind of data thousands of times more expensive than the normal stuff? What times qualify as "nights and weekends" on Mercury?(I'm guessing that free nights and weekends will not be offered on the dark side of the moon) So much of our existing mobile phone infrastructure is just a mass of stupid legacy crap, good-for-business-bad-for-everybody pricing structures, and arbitrary limitations. Worse, much of it is hacked on top of a much more sensible wireless packet switched infrastructure.
Wireless data links are good, obviously, particularly in places that have no wires. The incarnation we are stuck with on earth, though, is nothing short of pathetic. Surely we can do better than that in a place without legacy issues?
I expect that conversations would be simaler to the conversations made over "push to talk"/half duplex radio systems.
Let's just hope the lunar bomb squad doesn't find any of these scientific instruments buried in the soil and blow them up. Then the astronauts will have no way to call home.
Oh, wait that said moonLITE mission!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I don't mean to troll, I really don't, but this just seems to be an incredibly stupid waste of resources.
I don't see it working that well due to the lag, and the costs are incredible.
Are we really trying to put bandwidth (that is what is essentially being done) on the Moon?
Isn't the whole reason why we are having problems with bandwidth/transfer caps in the US due to a lack of bandwidth? Maybe we should be investing in our infrastructures at home and solving the problems we have here with our current bandwidth before trying to place some incredibly expensive bandwidth on the moon for possible colonists.
Now I understand this might be done for national pride, just like the space race in the 60's. Are we really going to have that much pride that we were the first to offer cellphone service on the Moon?
First, NASA tricks AT&T in setting up a cell phone network on the moon, then, in order to recoup their investment, AT&T must somehow get the moon colonized.
I will make millions selling sex.moon domain... astronaut porn is even kinkier than German shizer.
Those wacky colonists are up to their tricks again!
Is it April already?
I hesistate to think of what Alpha Moonbase's phone bill would look like by now.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Telemarketer : "Hello, can I interest you in some free samples of Viagra?"
Colonist : "Yeh sure"
Telemarketer : "Great to hear, where should I send them to?"
Colonist : "Well...you pay for the shipping, right?"
"Guess where *I'm* calling from!"
Perhaps the astronauts use the mosquito ringtone to prevent those pesky grown up ground controllers from knowing when a text message with the answer rings through...
...you won't be able to say, "In space no one can hear your ringtone." Well that's a damn shame, considering how everyone uses that phrase all the time./* No Comment */
I find it amusing that just this morning I read that the Air Force is in an uproar about needing $100B dollars over the next five years, just to prevent it's fleet from becoming anything less than cutting-edge.
Yet, NASA receives a mere $16.2B per year - and even with planned increases will not exceed the amount the Air Force is asking for in addition to what it already gets.
In short; I find it ridiculous that you can call anything "obsolete" that is barely funded, but has a much more sophisticated task to do. When NASA is as well funded as the Air Force, and can still not perform to par, then you can complain about it being obsolete.
[Ego]out
Can you hear me now? ....2.57sec...
yes .....2.57sec...
good!
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Any takers for a bet that this won't even be in the (serious) planning stage in 2020?
Let's play pretend...NASA might as well be playing with Legos; it will amount to the same thing.
Enjoy the space program while you can. To quote the right stuff, it's funding that makes those birds fly. It's that simple: no money, no big rockets. Interest on debt, medicare and Social Security are going to wind up getting all of the money. Whatever is left will go into Iraq.
God you're obnoxious...
I am under no illusions about the future. I really think there's a chance that the debt will be defaulted and that the dollar's fate is zero. The irony is that Bush's rich supporters will be most impacted (because they have the most to lose). The debt-laden masses will get off relatively Scot-free.
ASTRONOMICAL!
Actually, AT&T might have trouble lifting that much paper into orbit...
"four-bar signal"
As everybody knows foobar is the UNIVERSAL unwritten standard.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Will I have to SIM-unlock my iPhone to use it on the moon?
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Standard non-plan GSM data rate in Canada is 5c per kilobyte. So $50/meg. We have some of the least competition and most outrageous cell-phone prices in the world.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
"Very funny dear, now come upstairs, your dinner's getting cold."
The requirements for the Constellation program mandate that the in-space communication system be IP6 based, FWIW. With proper firewalls, maybe they'll be able to browse the web.
....
Of course they'll be at the bottom of the WoW PvP rankings due to lag
I'll bet the idea for this came out of NASA's latest booze-fueled Christmas Party:
"Screw this! I'm gonna build my own Lunar Cell Phone Network! With blackjack and hookers! You know what?...Forget the cellphone network!"
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I wonder if there is a block of IP addresses reserved for extraterrestrial use.
... for the Moon.
To put a witty saying into 120 characters, jst rmv ll th vwls.
Not many voters took this moon program seriously and no-one wants to fund it further.
Barrak wrote:
> the next president needs to have "a practical sense of what
> investments deliver the most scientific and technological
> spinoffs -- and not just assume that human space
> exploration, actually sending bodies into space, is always
> the best investment.
In order to minimize the visual impact of the cell towers, AT&T has pledged to disgiuse them as trees.
Have gnu, will travel.
There is a huge difference in size, yes. That is exactly the point. NASA is not amongst the most greatly funded US agencies - asking it to pull miracles out of a hat is a ridiculous proposition. You would expect the Air Force to be able to do fairly sophisticated tasks without a hitch, quickly, because it is so well funded. NASA is not so well funded - asking it to do such tasks is far more difficult. And that is assuming that their base difficulty were remotely similar - it's not. Operating within the terrestrial atmosphere is far easier than having most of your operations outside of it.
But that aside, look at what you're really saying; we ask a lot of the Air Force, and give it resources commensurate (we hope) with those tasks. We don't expect NASA to put up a cell phone network on the moon quickly - it's just not that valuable to us. So it's going to take a lot longer, because the budget is limited.
As I pointed out elsewhere, I'm not comparing the Air Force and NASA for any reason other than the two are both government agencies vaguely relate-able, and one is allowed to ask for a great deal of money where as the other is not. In terms of your analogy; it would be as silly to expect a city-wide fire department on a race car budget as it would to be to expect more than a handful of race cars.
[Ego]out
Well it's nice that my phone will be able to get a 4 bars connection on the moon, but what about us people still living on Earth? Half the time I don't even have two bars in my house, and I live in a major metropolitan area.
Can you hear me now? (moon jump) Can you hear me now? P.S. I wonder what the long distance charges are going to be like.
Obama = Socialism.
WTF do you need bars in your house for, WTF does booze have to do with phones on the Moon, and why TF do you want to hook the bars together?
It's unlikely that they'll need bars on the Moon any time soon, as I don't expect that they'll be sending up alcoholics for the first few missions. Not deliberately, anyway.
I don't know who modded this troll, but it really should be modded insightful.
Sad, but insightful.