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NASA and ESA To Demonstrate Earth-Moon Laser Communication
cylonlover writes with this news bite about a cool new ground to space laser communication system from NASA and ESA: "Space communications have relied on radio since the first Sputnik in 1957. It's a mature, reliable technology, but it's reaching its limits. The amount of data sent has increased exponentially for decades and NASA expects the trend to continue. The current communications systems are reaching their limits, so NASA and ESA are going beyond radio as a solution. As part of this effort, ESA has finished tests of part of a new communications system, in preparations for a demonstration in October in which it will receive a laser data download from a NASA lunar orbiter."
Maybe this is part of the reason why SETI hasn't picked up anything yet...
Maybe we will get someone out there.. finally? :)
...still needy, after all these years. We know all we need to know about that rock, and we can bounce lasers off drones 'till they vaporize, so this is just another way for NASA to suckle funding off taxpayers.
Why can scientists do something about that?
The sharks simply won't stand still while the communication is being done.
Ill be ok with spending tons of money on space when our sick are taken care of instead of left dying for lack of coverage. .. really .. till then it's just shaming us all .
Ill be ok with spending tons of money when the elderly are taken care of properly , same with our war veterans we abandoned.
Ill be ok with it then
1 October marks the state of the U.S. Fiscal Year.
This year in particular NASA is keen on Symbolism.
With only an "anticipated" $16 billion dollar budget NASA is on the ropes, has no 'Rope-A-Dope' and is going down to the mat Dazed And Confused.
Even if NASA were, by an act of Magic, afforded a budget of $160 billion dollars, it could not accomplish anything except, tally the money and send out 'thank you' cards to members of Congress.
Since the middle 1980s NASA has been on a hiring binge! The hires are Accountants and Attorneys.
I'll be kind and be blunt.
NASA has NO talent to design anything!
NASA has NO talent to manage anything!
NASA has NO talent in the areas needed to restart nor rebuild a spacecraft! and not even a potted plant.
OH! I see what you're thinking.
Well, JPL is NOT NASA and never was! JPL is JPL!
With the disestablishment of NASA, JPL would still exist!
Time to X NASA.
TCP/IP with freakin' lasers!
I was too lasey to read the article, so it would have been nice if the video was more illuminating, but at least its coherent.
We've been bouncing lasers off the moon for awhile now. Ohhh but this one will carry DATA! OOOOOO...
Fuck our space program is just downright sad these days...
Why can't scientists do something about that?
My sources tell me that's not going to happen until 2208.
#DeleteChrome
...you wouldn't want to play games through that connection. Now we just need to establish a film industry... on the Moon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_GZnrr1nw
So the ESA wants us to know that we're going to be watched even after we get off this ball. Nice.
we have known for centuries now that you can communicate using light or other visual signals in real time
we have been bouncing a laser off the moon since the late 60's
now, taking those two concepts and combining them, NASA is spending god knows how much time and money to communicate to the moon, WHERE THERE IS NOTHING TO RESPOND
can we please for the love of god end the multimillion dollar experiments that a 12 year old does on instructables?
so that we can get laser com from multiple sources. Then simply beam down to earth. I would guess that 10 or more would be needed, but this is cheaper than all of the ground stations that we have set up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...don't look at the moon with your remaining eye.
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
for their "satellite" based internet? slow enough and it sure seems like the latency is high enough (often 3+ sec) for two-way earth-moon routing.
This is the phase where we put a giant "laser" on the Moon. As you know, the Moon rotates around the Earth like so *spins moon globe around earth globe*. When the Moon reaches it's appropriate Lunar alignment, it will destroy Washington DC. You see, I've turned the Moon into what I like to call a "Death Star". Anyway, the key to this is the giant laser. It was invented by the noted Cambridge physicist Dr. Parsons. Therefore we shall call it The Alan Parsons Project
The moon that is... :P
So NSA will build a secret room on the Moon. We need some planet to moon encryption here. Stat!
I'm soo dissapointed about NSA that i've lost the will to write proper comments. [crawls back to bed]
isnt voyager one still senging radio messages from *beyond our galaxy*?
The space faring equivalent of sticks and stones.
Were finally implementing this? If you don't think this hasn't been figured out for at least 3 decades and just lacked the "mission critical funding" wonder where the 2cnd monolith is?
NSA isnt very bright
A) there has been a reflector on the moon
B) every so often they bunch a laser off it to see how long it takes for the round trip
What they found over the years is the moon is leaving orbit at 4cm a year.
UNLESS ITS ANOTHER LIE to propogate the moon landings were true...
... somebody uses this for porn?
Just askin'.
This may seem out of left field, but I was recently pondering the efficacy of lasers for submarine communications.
Only the very lowest radio frequencies penetrate a short distance below the surface of the ocean. The broadcasting equipment for those are enormous multi-megawatt monsters which can only transmit a minuscule amount of data, amounting to maybe a sentence per hour.
But with certain wavelengths of lasers, you can get penetration up to ~115 meters.
http://www.laseroptronix.se/techinfo/Waterabsorption.pdf
Even if the range is less, I'm sure submarine fleets would appreciate the option of laser-based two-way communications with satellites, without needing to surface.
Other than strategically placed buoys, is there even any other option for modernizing submarine communications past our current circa 1960s methods?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Sharks with Lasers in SPACE!
Time for the exegisis.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
TCP was built for Quantum Communication!
NASA and ESA To Demonstrate Earth-Moon Laser Communication, NSA To Listen In
ftfy
There are a few reasons it's being done with ground stations right now. This current project we're discussing is a "Demonstration", meaning that the technology has to be proven over several missions, and this is only the first. It's freaking hard to hit a 40 cm spot on the earth, not to mention a 10 cm telescope on a satellite orbiting the moon. My guess is they'll do a TDRS style constellation of satellites when the tech is proven (which I think it will be)