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.
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
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 Meanwhile the designs are being done now, so the plans will just sit for 5 years going out of date.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.
Yes. Optimally using light to go between earth and moon satellites it would be about 2 seconds. In reality it will vary significantly with the orbit of the moon, and of course nothing is optimal.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
"would there be an audible lag time for calls like this?"
Nope, the article says any lag time would fall either below 20 or above 20,000 Hz. If you were trying to talk to fido, he might notice a delay, however.
This is great, I'll be able to place a call on the moon but I still can't place one in my house.
You seem to be having a problem with your keyboard.
Anyway, I corrected the text for you.
GPG 0x1B479C78
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.
You seem to be having a problem with your keyboard.
Anyway, I corrected the text for you. Fixed again
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
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.
...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