DARPA is looking for ideas - Perhaps launching a Space Moose would work?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
> Date: October 28, 2009 1:29:24 PM EDT
> To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com
> Cc: 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: DarpaWatch
>
> There’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 wants
> the system “operational in the 2012 to 2013 time frame.”
>
> Brian Weeden, a former officer with U.S. Air Force Space Command and a
> technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation, says Darpa’s hel 
> p would
> be 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  
> right
> now,” 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 or
> not,” 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  
> those
> internet 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



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com