[extropy-chat] Re: Are dwarfs better for long duration spaceflight?

[David Lubkin]

Mike Lorrey wrote:

>--- David Lubkin wrote:
>
> > Part of that answer could be communications-relay spacecraft.
> >
> > There's a group that's adapting the Internet protocols for the
> > specific characteristics involved with an environment where even a
> > ping will take hours and an aging host may have too little remaining
> > power to waste resending mangled packets.
> >
> > Perhaps they should look at (if they aren't already) adapting the
> > routing protocols and building a space-worthy router that can become
> > a standard module included in every spacecraft, manned or unmanned,
> > regardless of mission.
>
>Well, spin-off technologies is nice, but I'm talking about space
>science making its data valuable to the market.
>
> > I'd also love to see more standards for describing and merging sensor
> > data, so that we can gradually build a grid of multi-purpose
> > buoys-cum-lighthouses throughout the system and then extending
> > beyond, perhaps one every light-hour for starters.
>
>With miniaturization, putting out hundreds or thousands of nano-probes
>operating in a network

How do you think that network would work without the routing 
protocols and hardware I'm talking about?

Command and data relay is not a spin-off. I'm not talking about 
earth-orbit. I'm saying that any mission anywhere, manned or 
unmanned, is going to need command and data relay. Whether it's that 
asteroid retrieval, your nano-probe network, or a manned 
Mars-or-Bust, every craft needs it and every craft can provide it for others.

And your nano-probe network becomes even more economically 
justifiable if, beyond its data acquisition mission, its packet relay 
mission improves the reliability and performance of everything else 
we do in space.


-- David.