Elon Musk Wants To Bring The Internet To Mars

Wow ATS, thhis Mars thing is happening faster than I thought. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX is now working to get the internet on Mars for future colonists, and he hopes to have this goal up and running in 10years.

This would create internet speeds that are much faster, since Musk says the speed of light is 40% faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber.

But Musk isn't just envisioning an improved internet system for Earth. He hopes that this network will eventually be able to extend to Mars to connect future colonies on the planet to the web.

The project is still unnamed and its unclear exactly how long it would take to build. But Businessweek reports that the effort would be based in Seattle and is starting with 60 employees. That team may grow to 1,000 over the next three to four years.

I applaud his effort to move humankind forward into the future. I think competition between private companies is the new Space Race but I gotta say that I think a combined effort between SpaceX and MarsOne might be the best way to go in the long run. What says ATS?

finance.yahoo.com...

Yeppers. Pretty cool and totally doable. Latency will be a real PITA to work around but cant be helped.

Just in time for the first settlers of the Mars One colony to arrive. I'm sure this network for the marsnet will also carry the Reality TV show to earth for our viewing pleasures.

The whole thought that i might see planetary habitation beyond earth in my lifetime gives me the chills. (Good Chills)

This guy is exactly what we need more on this rock.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

Latency on the speed of light, will be negligible lol

Today's Sattelite ISP's for example, average a 600 - 900ms ping, and that's not light transmission. The average round trip is about 80 thousand Kilometers as well.

I would think it would be more of a line of sight issue.

I must agree though, space travel in my lifetime? Makes me like I'm 10 again.

~Tenth

a reply to: lostbook

I think they got the cart before the horse.

"Wireless Mars". It already is. A new internet? That will be faster with hundreds more satellites? Can't fault the guy for dreaming big.

Didn't their s*** just crash land returning from orbit? Better get the kinks worked out first, guys.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: shaneslaughta

I must agree though, space travel in my lifetime? Makes me like I'm 10 again.

~Tenth

Exactly sums up what I feel...I wish I could live on mars

Go for it. Every space mission to Mars has to factor in the cost of a communication system for the probes, orbiting communications base station, having communication systems on Earth to receive, process and analyze the data.

Imagine if there was high-speed satellite Internet already available on Mars. Costs of exploration would just be reduced to sending out the probes themselves. The only problem though would be the rapidly changing technology. In the mid 1990's, a 14.4K (1K/second) modem was state-of-the-art for home users. In the mid 2000's, a 70Mbit cable modem was state-of-the-art (effectively 500Kbytes/second). Now it is around 210 Mbit (1.5 Mbytes/second).

The Iridium satellite network was an attempt to bring communications to everywhere in the world. It actually went bankrupt, only to be bought up and resurrected as Internet communications for rescue workers and other agencies, since they only need to be given satellite phones. There's a Iridium Next system being launched this year to improve data communications. Imagine if a similar system were available on Mars.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Are you to tell me that its not going to take x minutes plus for our communications to reach mars then x more on the return trip?

The table below indicates the communication delay that occurs in a one-way transmission.
Circuit Distance Delay
Time HF link (UK-NZ) ~20,000 km 0.07 s (67 ms)
Submarine cable(UK-NZ) ~20,000 km 0.07 s (67 ms)
Geosat Link (US-Aus) ~80,000 km 0.25 s
Earth-Moon 384,000 km 1.3 s
Earth-Mars 55 - 378 million km 3 - 21 minutes
Earth-Jupiter 590 - 970 million km 33 - 53 minutes
Earth-Pluto ~5800 million km 5 hours
Earth-Nearest Star ~9.5 million million km 4 years

www.spaceacademy.net.au...

How can there be negligable latency when as it stands currently, we can send something like a command to the rover on mars one way and it takes minutes to reach it depending on distance from us at any given point in time.(Orbital Period)

From that chart (One Way) takes minutes and lets not forget how the internet works with two way communication. (Get/Post)

The computer A on Mars requests file B on server 1 (ATS) on the Earth. (Get) Then the server 1 sends computer A file B to Mars. (Post)

There is 6 to 42 minutes round trip just to see the (ATS) homepage.

Edit: That does not even take into account high issues with high data rate transmissions and large file sizes.

Unless the laws of physics don't apply anymore and we can break the speed of light with electromagnetic communications?

I wont even go into line of sight issues that will stop communications all together, unless we use strategically positioned satellites to bounce the signal around blocking objects like other planets.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

Ah, lemme see if I can expand on my thoughts a bit.

I maybe wrong, I took by computer engineering degree ages ago.

I'm not aware of anybody/anything who/that broadcasts or sends information via fiber at speeds beyond the usual thresholds like the ones you linked.

Most likely the technology that Elon has in mind will be based on something further down the spectrum, maybe even Gamma.

it only takes 500 seconds for the light of the sun to reach earth. At a distance of almost 300 thousand kilometers.

Mars is a stone's throw away in comparison. IMO like you said, the line of sight issues will be far more prevalent that lag over the distance.

~Tenth

Mars Colonization: too little, too late

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Interesting take on it, thought he did say lights 40% faster in a vacuum i am assuming he is talking about laser communication.

Boy oh boy if its gamma ray communication that makes me a bit nervous as those are some high energy waves that i wound not want to be exposed to.

I can feel my cells just mutating already.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

I had not thought of laser honestly, you're probably right about that.

But, if there's one person I trust to bring me the future, it's that man.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I'm not worried with right or wrong, i am just trying to wrap my head around it. The article is quite vague.

This "web" will actually be radio contact right?

What if the "web" manifests into it a form of consciousness that communicates to us and looks a lot like AI?

Ohh man i FAIL!

Bahahahah so freaking obvious.

originally posted by: shaneslaughta
a reply to: tothetenthpower

Interesting take on it, thought he did say lights 40% faster in a vacuum i am assuming he is talking about laser communication.

Boy oh boy if its gamma ray communication that makes me a bit nervous as those are some high energy waves that i wound not want to be exposed to.

I can feel my cells just mutating already.

You wouldn't want to be exposed the microwaves from those dishes on microwave relay towers either. They're the same kind of microwaves that go into cooking ovens and radar systems. And the laser light from fibre-optic cables could damage your sight too.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: shaneslaughta

Latency on the speed of light, will be negligible lol

Today's Sattelite ISP's for example, average a 600 - 900ms ping, and that's not light transmission. The average round trip is about 80 thousand Kilometers as well.

I would think it would be more of a line of sight issue.

I must agree though, space travel in my lifetime? Makes me like I'm 10 again.

~Tenth

At the speed of light latency to Mars is 4-24 minutes one-way (that would be a ping of no less than 8-48 minutes per ping depending on orbital position of Earth and Mars in relation to eachother). Also for several months of the year line-of-sight would result in a complete blackout thanks to the Sun.

a reply to: lostbook

Isnt he getting a little ahead of himself?

I mean, first get some oxygen in the air, im sure the wifi can wait.

here is how you handle transmission lag. drop sats along the way to catch the signal and boost it.

a reply to: yuppa

Negative. You can not boost the time it takes to make the trip with any given medium of transmission. You can boost the signal strength if its RF, you can amplify the light source if its laser. That would give a more stable connection or link but not increase the speed of transmission.

We would have to manipulate the bandwidth of the transmission medium to get more throughput in any given time period. This will help make it more feasible to transmit the data in larger quantities helping make it a more usable system.

Until we can manipulate the laws of physics we are stuck obeying the speed limit.

Is there still a comms officer position for the Mars One expedition? If so sign me up.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

Even if the beam is constant and unbroken? I mean a continuous dedicated system that is always on.