Dream job idea: interplanetary IT and security. For when ppl actually go to mars/moon long term and need to be connected to the internet, which should prob happen soon after I graduate college
Internet access would be totally different when a request takes 30-40 mins to fulfill. Probably *aggressive* caching and IPFS like sharing with local nodes will be required.
Workflows for the astronauts would be different too, like all standard html css is depencies should be resolved with the original request.
And idk how tls or any auth that requires multiple back and forths would work. Content based addressing would prob really be needed. Which makes me wonder, was ipfs designed with this in mind?
Maybe people change workflows too. Like before critical mass is acheived for caching, people would probably request a few articles, go away, and then read later.
Even when critical mass is acheived, for real time events like the news, the above would happen.
Has anyone done real research on how interplanetary internet access would work with those latencies? #askfedi
hmm not sure how active this is tho
http://ipnsig.org/
@karmanyaahm
Disclaimer: I'm not actually involved in space engineering, I only kinda know what I'm talking about.
Each spacecraft has its own specific engineering and programming. The protocols in these papers are basically engineering guidelines, though some are important for reusing existing communication equipment, especially since reuse provides higher reliability and security.
What matters though is mission success, and sometimes clever solutions are required.
@karmanyaahm In the longer term, things will surely become more standardized. Still, space communication will probably never be as unified as terrestrial communications due to wildly varying latencies, and the fact that very old craft that can't be retrieved will be potentially be communicating endlessly using old protocols.
Another issue is loss of signal and situations with heavy noise. If you go behind a planet or there's a solar flare, you've got to just deal with it.
@karmanyaahm Radio operators on Earth already have to deal with issues like this, though less extreme.
You might want to look into ham radio if you think this might be your jam. The old guys keeping ham radio going are always ecstatic to get new members.
@urusan interesting... I'll look more into that
Boosts welcome for the above question.