back to article NASA fires up the 'interplanetary internet'

The International Space Station has become home to the first node in the "interplanetary internet". The Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) system uses "store-and-forward techniques within the network in order to compensate for intermittent link connectivity". As NASA explained during ground-based simulation tests last year, DTN " …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    It'll be over run with

    Advertising & Spam

  2. nichomach
    Coat

    "Is anyone there...?"

    ping iss

    Pinging iss.space.notverylocal [192.168.1.1] with 32 bytes of data:

    Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time>1week TTL=fuhgeddaboutit

    Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time>1week TTL=fuhgeddaboutit

    Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time>1week TTL=fuhgeddaboutit

    Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time>1week TTL=fuhgeddaboutit

    Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:

    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss) ?

    /coat

  3. TeeCee Gold badge

    Second payload?

    ".....creating the interplanetary internet's second node....."

    Presumably actually at least its third. I'm guessing that they already have one or more somethings down here capable of communicating with the existing thing up there. There wouldn't be much point otherwise.

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Please allow me to introduce myself

    My name is sub-ambassador GroL and I have recently inherited 35 million Flarbs which are in a bank on Mars. However I am not able to transfer the monkey off-world, due to the interplanetary financial crisis.

    If you will send me your name, address and banking details I would like to transfer the money elsewhere, via your account. For your trouble, I am willing to pay you 3.5 million Flabs, which at the current rate of exchange is worth something in the region of $2million.

    If you are unable to participate in this transaction, maybe you'd be interested in our special, patented treatment to elongate your Fnoop-gland.

    We can aso improve your websites ratings in Galactoogle. Starting from 2000 Flarbs up to 10,000 Flarbs which guarantees to quadruple the number of hits you get everywhere from here to Ursa-Minor.

    With bestest greetings

    GroL

  5. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Happy

    Strangely familiar?

    Fidonet rides again?

  6. Peter D'Hoye
    Thumb Up

    Could be used on earth as well

    Quite a number of ADSL users with crappy lines could use this too ;)

  7. James Micallef Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Cool!

    Now astronauts can have pr0n in space

  8. Nentisys
    Thumb Up

    @Pete 2

    @Pete 2, well played sir, that was brilliant.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Houston.. we have a

    404 error...

    What do we do?"

    "NASA fires up the 'interplanetary internet'

    ISS hosts first 'Delay Tolerant Networking' node"

    When I first glanced the sub heading, I thought it said

    "ISS hosts first Delay Torrent Networking node" Pirates in Space... one day... maybe..

  10. David Neil
    Thumb Up

    Store and forward

    I'm fairly sure this was the original model proposed for the IMP traffic on the ARPA network, but they had issues with filling the storage available.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same

  11. Havin_it
    Coffee/keyboard

    Domain name?

    Might be needing some new TLDs here...

    iss.space

    nasahq.earth.space

    Then again maybe those are too short-sighted?

    iss.near-earth-orbit.sol.milkyway.univ

    Don't even get me started on parallel dimensions...

    As well as the naming issues, we'll start running short of IPv6 addresses eventually and will have to roll out IPv8 in order to keep going!

    @Pete 2: see icon ;)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Great, what's the odds...

    ...them difficult martians are using Novell running IPX/SPX?

  13. ThaMossop
    Happy

    @Ian Johnston

    Yeah, sounds familiar to me too.. So this would be the start of the backbone for a new zone? :)

  14. deshepherd

    @Domain name?

    back in the day when usenet ruled the world (i.e. late 80s) there was a tradition of various spoof official announcements being posted on Apr 1 ... I feel sure I remember one (but last time this subject came up I was unable to locate it in googles archive) which was an RFC (request for comments - the way new internet ideas/protocols were developed then by peer review/comment) on a proposal to add an extra level of domain name to allow for the net to expand to other planets (and their moons via sub-domains) in the solar system.

  15. J. Cook Silver badge
    Boffin

    Guess at least one thing will need to be renamed...

    Once we get a working node on Mars, we'll need to call the present 'martian' IP ranges something else, then...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Hooray!!!

    PB can move off planet and avoid all copyshite problems.

    We now need a uTorrent tracker added to the ISS. Seen as how it is mostly russian, they won't mind sticking it to the US record companies.

    kthxbye

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Interplanetary internet ?

    Which is the other one ?

  18. Peter D'Hoye
    Grenade

    @AC

    Actually, why not launch a satellite with a big server in it and let that serve files ;)

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    P2P server in orbit...

    ...we can call it Caroline

  20. David Halko

    It's Called...

    It's Called... UUCP - with huge packets & windows!!!

    ;-)

  21. WhatWasThat?
    Pirate

    @P2P server(s) in orbit...

    Like any good satellite constellation (system), you will need several to provide uniform coverage over the globe... Might I suggest:

    Caroline (of course and thanks!), Sherman, Hillary, Rosen, Valenti, Glickman, Murren, Grey, Wagner, Plank, Lynton, Stringer, Lynne, and Eisner to start?

  22. James 55

    Is it just me

    or is this really exciting?

  23. Nuno
    FAIL

    one big problem

    This transmit once, fire and forget, is very nice, except if, for example, the outpost gets destroyed by a meteor and nobody will receive the transmissions they had stored for relay...

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And here's what we'll use it for

    iss: lol

    iss: @k3wl420 omg just took a dump and it floated!!!!!1 wtf

    iss: @melissa14 hey babee wanna cyber

    iss: omg wtf r0fl

    iss: @missioncontrol roger

    iss: lol I said 'roger'. loool

    iss: rofltomato

  25. Secretgeek
    Thumb Up

    @James 55

    I second that.

    And add I'm quite looking forward to the host of nodes stretching from here to Mars enabling effective comms with our new colony. (Ok maybe optimistic but the parts are coming together)

    Sometimes, just sometimes you get the small feeling that the future really is just around the corner.

  26. Witty username
    Joke

    Tech support?

    What happens when it develops problems? can you unplug the ISS and plug it back in again? how will BT openreach vans get there? :P

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Does that mean...

    That the ISS crew members can now get pr0n?

    If yes, I'm ready to move into space away from this crazy planet!!

    Paris because... well, you probably know

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