Interplanetary internet

An interplanetary internet does not exist yet. When people talk about an interplanetary internet, they are talking about a problem they are still trying to solve - the problem of making the internet to work between different planets.

Method

The way the internet works here on Earth is simple. Computers need to connect to each and can share a network. One computer sends another computer a message (called a packet) and then the other sends back a message saying it got it. Internet messages move at the speed of light, about 300 thousand kilometres in a second, which is very fast. But if you were sending that message to Mars, it would take about ten minutes for the message to get there, and another ten for it to get back. That means we need to completely change the way computers talk to each other if we are going to communicate between different planets. That is the problem people are trying to solve when they talk about the interplanetary internet. It's a new and a very interesting concept.

Interplanetary Internet Media

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  The speed of light, illustrated here by a beam of light traveling from Earth to the Moon, would limit the speed at which messages would be able to travel in the interplanetary Internet. In this example, it takes light 1.26 seconds to travel from the Earth to the Moon. Due to the vast distances involved, much longer delays may be incurred than in the Earth-bound Internet.

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  Simplified Interplanetary Internet overview, Mars to Earth communication

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  ICANN meeting, Los Angeles, USA, 2007. The marquee pays a humorous homage to the Ed Wood film Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), and the operating system Plan 9 from Bell Labs, while namedropping Internet pioneer Vint Cerf using a spoof of a then-current film Surf's Up (2007).

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  The Deep Impact mission

Other websites

• The InterPlaNetary Internet Project IPN Special Interest Group