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DARPA is looking for ideas - Perhaps launching a Space Moose would work?
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:39:22 -0400
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From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com> Date: October 28, 2009 1:29:24 PM EDT To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups comCc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, David Farber <dave () farber net > Subject: DARPA is looking for ideas - Perhaps launching a Space Moose would work?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/darpa-looks-to-send-the-internet-into-orbit/ Darpa Looks to Send the Internet Into Orbit * By Noah Shachtman Email Author * October 27, 2009 | * 11:34 am | * Categories: DarpaWatchThere’ve been satellites orbiting Earth for half a century. But gett ing information to and from them is still a pain. Which is why Pentagon research arm Darpa is looking to finally hook the orbiting spacecraft up with reliable broadband connections. It’s part of a larger movement to extend terr estrial networks into space, and eventually build an “Interplanetary Interne t.” In the meantime, we might even get less-than-crappy satellite internet service —if the project works out, of course.Darpa recently issued a request for information about supplying “per sistent broadband ground connectivity for spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.” Th e idea would be to give these satellites a near-constant feed of “100 kbps or higher” two-way connectivity, with end-to-end transmission latency o f less than a second. Unlike most Darpa projects, which are meant to pay off years or decades in the future, this would be a near-term attempt. The agency wantsthe system “operational in the 2012 to 2013 time frame.” Brian Weeden, a former officer with U.S. Air Force Space Command and atechnical adviser with the Secure World Foundation, says Darpa’s hel p wouldbe most welcome.“The protocol that the internet uses — TCP/IP — wasn’t really designed with space in mind. For one, the delay times between nodes can be big. One way to GEO [geosynchronous orbit] is 300 milliseconds at the speed of light, there and back over half a second of built-in network lag before anything else adds to it. That’s one reason why getting internet from satellites sucks rightnow,” he tells Danger Room.“If you go lower than GEO, then of course satellites are always movi ng and thus not always overhead. It would be a huge help to have a protocol that can automatically store and forward packets when the satellite is present ornot,” Weeden adds.For years, Darpa — which backed much of the early research into the internet — has been working with other networking godfathers to put together an“interplanetary internet.”“We’re pretty used to it but the internet is actually a pretty revolutionary construct. That you can drop a packet of data on it with only a starting and destination address and it finds its way there without any directions is pretty astonishing,” Weeden explains. “The payloads on most satellites don’t work that way — payload operators need to configure specific transpo nders for specific users and applications. So part of this is trying to bring thoseinternet concepts of automatic routing and network config to satellite constellations, and perhaps to make them extensions of the land-based internet infrastructure.” Darpa’s deadline for ideas of how to pull it off is Nov. 5. --The war on privilege will never end. Its next great campaign will be against the privileges of the underprivileged. H. L. Mencken
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- DARPA is looking for ideas - Perhaps launching a Space Moose would work? Dave Farber (Oct 28)