802.11b Space Suits

Saint Aardvark writes "The BBC has an article here about WearSat, the new generation of space suits: embedded RISC processor, 802.11b networking, VGA heads-up display, and 1GB microdrive. I want one for my rec room."

I want one!

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that the people involved in this project seem to each be from the top of their respective fields. This means it won't run Windows. This could make mission communications easier. (As long as they don't waste all their time using the messaging features like many of us do at work) And let's face it, the space suit needs an upgrade, right. I wonder how long until Think Geek gets one?

why the microdrive?

[Pyromage]

I can see the point of the rest, but the microdrive seems like a waste. For one thing, how shielded are those suits? How much EM can magnetic media take? I can see the usefulness of say, a hud with schematics of circuits, or a map, or whatever displayed on it via the network, BUT, what on earth would you put on the microdrive? If you're taking photos, the drive goes in the camera, not the suit! But otherwise, I think it could be cool. Also, maybe those microoptical lcd glasses could be useful here?

Re:802.11B?

[ShmuelP]

1) I'm sure that in the vacuum of space, the signals can go farther
2) Just how far do you want a spacewalking astronaut to be from his/her base?

Fitting the wearable computer...

[Zazm]

I thought that a large portion of the development on wearable computing was in the area of flexible logic boards. Given such flexible system could be woven into the fabric of the suit this would seem a far superior opion that would not require space on the already heavily populated chest and back.

It might even add to the insulating properties of the suit.

And for my comedy points...

does the space suit play mp3s?

And then somebody says something reasonable....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrm did anyone think of this perhaps:

Since they are just sort of prototyping these things to bid to NASA, they probably are just using this as a proof of concept sort of thing.

NASA owns tons of frequencies. In real live suits, they'd probably use packet radio technology that they've already proven and gotten comfortable with.

Note that NASA's new "better, faster, cheaper" motto does not extend to situations where human life is concerned. If these radios are intended to assist in monitoring astronaut's vitals or performing other mission critical missions in which failure could result in a loss of life, they will certainly not be used.

Hell without that nice atmosphere to protect them, you'd think they'd be a little bit smarter than to use such low power crap with such a bad SNR up there.

What is everyone's facination with 802.11 anyway? It's cool but it's not magic, folks. In fact, it kind of sucks. It''s five+ year old tech. It'd be nice if all this energy was put towards lobbying the FCC to open up the spectrum so consumers could start using higher powers and more spectrum. Did anyone say ultra-wideband? How about software-defined radio? You think 11mbps is fast, some of the technology that exists today can do 11gbps (and on low enough frequencies and powers that it is both effective and safe) yet because of the FCC, we just can't use it. oh well. sucks to your government.

:: JOIN US! POST AS AC AND MAKE THE MODERATORS DO THEIR DAMN JOB ::

What about the crackers?

[sean23007]

What would happen to the astronauts if their space suit was cracked by a kid with a beefed up receiver on the ground? Now I know the 802.11b standard doesn't broadcast that far, but it is conceivably possible that, say, another country, could build a huge ass wireless receiver, light up an astronaut, and hack his system, and take total control of his 'desktop.'

Maybe they'll put a new show on cable: Remote control spaceman battles! Now on Comedy Central!