Startup To Put Cellphone Tower on the Moon (space.com) 76
An astronaut wandering the moon next year could use a smartphone to call home. If everything goes according to a plan, that is. A German startup is preparing to set up the first telecommunication infrastructure on the lunar surface. From a report: The German company Part Time Scientists, which originally competed for the Google Lunar X Prize race to the moon, plans to send a lander with a rover in late 2018 to visit the landing site of Apollo 17. (Launched in 1972, this was NASA's final Apollo mission to the moon.) Instead of using a complex dedicated telecommunication system to relay data from the rover to the Earth, the company will rely on LTE technology -- the same system used on Earth for mobile phone communications. "We are cooperating with Vodafone in order to provide LTE base stations on the moon," Karsten Becker, who heads embedded electronics development and integration for the startup, told Space.com. "What we are aiming to do is to provide commercial service to bring goods to the moon and also to provide services on the surface of the moon," Becker added.
Last Post (Score:5, Funny)
I'd be first post, but that LTE latency of sending packets back and forth with the moon is just terrible!
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0.25 sec each way? I get the same lag off my Sat. Internet connection here on Earth.
Not quite conducive to playing a FPS, but just fine for almost everything else (though Webex is a big laggy, it actually still works over a Sat. modem.)
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The moon is ~239,000 miles from earth. The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. You might want to check your math again.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/309829-dems-propose-historical-park-on-the-moon [thehill.com]
Roaming charges (Score:5, Funny)
Those roaming charges will be astronomical.
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You take things too literally. It was a metaphor. [youtube.com]
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I think scientists had already proved by 1955 that human muscle power alone is insufficient to propel an object to the moon.
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Those roaming charges will be astronomical.
Something tells me that weekends won't be free either.
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I know another place to stick one. (Score:3, Funny)
Right in Uranus
The moon will have better coverage than here (Score:3)
Fantastic! The moon will have better coverage than the town where I live! Wait. That sucks.
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What?
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That's what she said.
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I saw what you did there.
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creimer doesn't seem to know that. Maybe he thinks parts of the moon go into a blackhole when the sun doesn't shine on them.
Will not be easy ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... using a smart phone with those gloves on.
Re:Will not be easy ... (Score:4, Funny)
u9 9RGWU9ti taz uQ IGW4
--
Sent from my MoonPhone. Please excuse any typos.
You know, those aliens... (Score:2)
...need decent coverage too.
Someone said it above (Score:1)
... but how exactly would you do this without 100x Hughesnet levels of latency?
Miser
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... but how exactly would you do this without 100x Hughesnet levels of latency?
The round trip latency is about 2.5 seconds, which is a killer for voice, but is fine for texting. No one born after 1990 uses voice anyway. I have two teenagers, and I have to use texting to tell them dinner is ready.
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>The round trip latency is about 2.5 seconds
PTT, don't expect synchronous communications. Apollo managed just fine.
Even so, this is kind of silly even as a publicity stunt. There's little need for complicated infrastructure when you can easily get away with a relay station on your lander and a suit radio. You're not going to leave radio range of your lander as it will also have all your precious oxygen, and you're not taking your suit off either.
And there's currently no real need for encryption, thoug
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"have to use texting to tell them dinner is ready" "Have to" is pretty strong there. "Choose to coddle them by texting" is a much more accurate way to state this as most people don't even need to use a phone to tell people in the house that the food has been prepared.
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The one way trip is 2.5 seconds. Round trip is about 5-6 seconds.
Distance to the moon = 384,400 km
Speed of light = 299,792 km/sec
Round trip time = (distance * 2) / speed = 2.56 seconds.
Startup will put 'X' on moon (Score:5, Insightful)
We seem to get a story like this at least every other month. Just to keep some perspective on how ludicrous this is, here's a list of nation states that have landed something on the moon without crashing it:
US
China
USSR
A few more have deliberately crashed something on the moon:
India
Japan
ESA
Don't feed the marketing trolls by posting stories like this please. It wastes time and electrons that could be put to far better use....
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Cell service could be used by anyone that sends up something that needs an internet connection. Like a robotic rover, or science station, or whatever. A cell transmitter is a lot smaller and less power hungry and cheaper than what is usually used to transmit stuff back to earth leaving more power and weight and money for doing science stuff.
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And there isn't a single country on the planet (nor consortium of countries) that could POSSIBLY have "An astronaut wandering the moon next year" -- probably not even in 5 years, even with a MASSIVE multinational effort.
You're thinking of the old-fashion method of having a round-trip plan. One-way could be done in 5 years.
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And there isn't a single country on the planet (nor consortium of countries) that could POSSIBLY have "An astronaut wandering the moon next year" -- probably not even in 5 years, even with a MASSIVE multinational effort.
This mentality simply blows me away. It really does. Imagine if we sat around and talked like this about ANY other technology that's fifty years old. It's like claiming it would take a MASSIVE multi-organizational effort to re-produce a 1969 Plymouth. Or build a black and white television.
If cost is the argument against re-creating 50-year old missions, the government pisses away funding for half a dozen moon missions every year on stupid shit like marijuana prohibition. Seems it's all about priorities
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Could you please clarify your point?
The first part of your sentence claims how ludicrous it would be implying it isn't easy/possible, while the second part of that same sentence details exactly how possible it is to do.
Are you claiming it isn't possible for a German company to put things on the moon via Russian rockets?
Or are you claiming it IS possible for a German company to put things on the moon via Russian rockets?
I mean, obviously you claimed both at the same time, but clearly only one can be true, ri
Dark Side (Score:2)
Re:Dark Side (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
-- Pink Floyd
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He sure was cruisin' for a bruisin'
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For half of every month, that's Nearside.
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almost as dumb as fake news (Score:3)
From what I can gather, the story is that they plan to use a relay box to send data from their rover to Earth (if they ever get there) rather than having a higher powered transmitted on the rover.
Aside from the "we think LTE means a cellphone on the moon" part, is this at all interesting?
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I think LTE *does* mean cell service on the moon - I doubt they're going to make something custom. They'll take a normal LTE radio/sim card and stick it on their rover using standard off the shelf parts, and have it talk to the relay tower that will be just like on earth with the only difference being the long range backhaul through space to get to earth.
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Calls cost $10/min Data $20/MEG $1/SMS (Score:2)
Calls cost $10/min Data $20/MEG $1/SMS
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OMG (Score:2)
Now the moon, the last quiet place, will be polluted with the sound of incessant dumb yapping. ""Here, I'm here, on the Moon". "No, the MOON, you know, just look up and you'll see me. Ha, ha, ha""I'm waving, can you see me?"
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Now the moon, the last quiet place, will be polluted with the sound of incessant dumb yapping. ""Here, I'm here, on the Moon". "No, the MOON, you know, just look up and you'll see me. Ha, ha, ha""I'm waving, can you see me?"
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No worries, sound doesn't travel in a vacuum so it'll still be perfectly silent if you're outside without a helmet on.
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I'd reccommend some good sunblock in that case. I'd wear a painter's mask to keep out the dust
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Is that monolith buried in Tycho just an ancient alien cell tower?
Or maybe it was put there by the same folks that run this radio station. [slashdot.org]
We like the moon! (Score:2)
ET phone home (Score:2)
New Verizon commercial... (Score:1)
"Can you hear me now ...OVER..."
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The aliens will use it to up load malware to our presidents brain!
Hmm ... Donald Trump on the moon ... marooned with aliens ...
~ ~ * uh, sorry, what was the topic?
Both Customers, over the next 3 decades... (Score:2)
...will be very happy.
Make it stop (Score:2)
Ingress on the moon (Score:2)
Although once back on Earth I suspect you will be out of recharge range to keep any captured portals up.