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NASA Tests Deep-Space Network Modeled On the Internet
hcg50a writes "NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth. The store-and-forward protocol was designed by NASA in consultation with Vint Cerf. Here's a discussion from last July before the test began."
lolcats in space!
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
This is very exciting, not only because of its utility in space, but because of its utility on Earth as well. Particularly in areas with unreliable internet service, delay-tolerant protocols can be extremely helpful for allowing basic connectivity to the outside world. Consider the choice is having no internet communications at all versus waiting a day or two for your email to travel out of your village, onto the passing truck that is caching data, and into the city where it can proceed through a reliable internet connection. DTN is powerful stuff.
It really kills me when people dismiss developments in space programs as being too far removed (no pun intended) from the rest of us to be relevant.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
We already have a working _global_ _worldwide_ _free_ network based on store-and-forward protocols.
It's called FIDONet. It's almost dead now, but it was very alive during early 90-s before the advent of cheap Internet.
Kids...
Deep space my arse! Its just space. We've not even stepped out of our own little planet-moon system yet and we think we want to start using up space-faring superlatives. Morons! Soon the term deep-space will be about as meaningful as artificial intelligence (assuming deep-space was ever a meaningful term in the first place). If this system is for "deep-space" then what will we call a communication protocol that works well between stars?
Anyone in marketing, kill yourself! - Bill Hicks
CLANWARS_PUBLIC#1 LAVAPIT-BIG UDP 56
LOL-GIBBERISHED OH!NOSHIT_ctf UDP 68
PLAYTIME.DOT.UK DM_HOLYGROUNDS UDP 254
FRAGFEST_REDPLANET DM_HELLHOLE UDP 2,139,442
Ping of 2 MILLION? WTF ?!?
With space you have no internet (i.e. road) and TTLs are too high to use the same technology we use here.
You might think so, but it *has* been shown to work. I mean, don't tell me you never heard of the pigeon protocol?
Yeah, but while you guys were talking about that, I trademarked Subcasting (TM).
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Well, if you throw them in the right direction with the right velocity...
Assuming you don't have to enter or exit any atmospheres, it could work. The catching site would be messy, and would give Mike Rowe an excuse to go into space.
It would just be a "dead pigeon" protocol.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
UUCPNet, Pathalias, and the UUCP Mapping Project.
Kids, indeed.
I still have several names registered with the UUCP Mapping Project as of their shutdown (freezing the namespace).
Some of them still exchange mail via UUCP, too. Both with each other and the rest of the net. B-)
(In fact one of those rest-of-the-net links was down for a while and came back up right after McColo was cut off. B-> )
= = = =
Running mailing lists with a periodic UUCP link in the path has an additional side-effect: It limits the traffic explosion from mail loops that are not detected to a manageable volume, giving the admin time to shut down the offending address.
= = = =
I understand that UUCP mailnet is ALREADY in use in Africa in a very interesting form:
- Villages have a WiFi-enabled machine to exchange mails and files with the outside world.
- The local mail carrier has a bicycle with a WiFi-enabled, battery-powered machine with a decently large disk.
- As he cycles from village to village the bike-mounted machine associates with the local machine and UUCP does its usual magic, transferring mail, files, and download requests. (Don't know if they also run netnews groups on it...
- One of the machines on his route has internet connectivity and transfers the mail, files, and download requests to the rest of the world.
All with legacy protocols doing what they always did. And he doesn't even have to stop pedaling. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way