US military to launch WiFi router into space
By Darren Murph 
posted Apr 12th 2007 5:49PM
posted Apr 12th 2007 5:49PM
The mysterious expanses of space have been seeing quite a lot of action lately, but rather than watching a couple of autonomous crafts tackle tasks for kicks, the US military is hoping to set their next router right beside a constellation. Partnering with Intelsat and Cisco Systems, the US Department of Defense is hoping "to test an internet router in space in hopes of benefiting civilian broadband satellite communications." Additionally, the Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project aims to assist in all sorts of "military communications," as it routes IP traffic between space-bound sats and cuts down on the time required to divvy out information. As expected, voice, video, and data will all be supported, and once the three-year initiative is complete, "the technology will be available for commercial use" -- you know, in case you're looking to relocated your networking gear to the Black Hole.
Torrent servers in orbit ?
@ZRX
NASA joins RIAA to fight piracy in space!
On the subject:
Will be nice to see what this brings us "normal" users.
Hey, thats a Cisco 871W...I got one of those...sexy
Good idea for space exploration, Not even aliens can resist the call of free Wifi.
reminds me of a great book:
http://www.accelerando.org/
I hope they change the router default settings...
SSID: Satellite ...
Naw, they will probably leave it "Netgear"... *CoughCough* I mean Linksys...
i wonder what kind of signal decay you'd experience in space?? we should get rid of our crummy ozone layer...my D-Link router would DEFINITELY reach across the house...
Gotta put on the WPA encryption to make sure the aliens don't steal our bandwidth!
Heh, they're gonna love us when they manage to download a copy of the game "Area 51". Hopefully they'll struggle with installing Vista in the first place.
I'm only heading to the black hole if that cool robot Maximilian will be my loyal servant.
It's a long way to go to reset the router when it overheats and packs up.
Isn't going to cause global warming with the heat those Cisco routers put out?
Isn't **it** going to...
It is another attempt by La Fonera to kill Starbucks hotspots!
It is not WiFi, but still sweet. Wardriving in space?
dammit the connection blinked. whose turn is it to go reset the router again?
This is for Starbucks on the Moon.
Hey God needs WiFi too. :)