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

[Mike Lorrey]

--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:

> 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?

I don't, but I don't consider income from spinning such technology off
to the Earth market to be the major value-adder that justifies mass
production of space probes. What the probes produce themselves (science
data) must be of marketable value to justify mass producing them.

> 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.

Ah, so you want it to operate as a backbone for other spacecraft and
installations, as a space ISP? Okay, I get it, though in this you are
competing against a zero priced competitor: all the radio dishes that
are routinely used to directly receive data from probes.

There is also the problem of signal strength. Even with thousands of
probes in solar system space, the average space between probes will, at
minimum, be in the hundreds of thousands of miles if not millions of
miles. Receiving signals at that distance requires directional dishes
of significant size that will take up a large part of the mass of any
such probe, if not be in excess of total probe mass, even if you use a
phased array.

What dispersion distance are you expecting to be reasonable?

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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