In space no one can hear you scream... but they can "hear you now"

Did you know that NASA was building a base of operations in the south pole of the Moon? Did you know colonists would be living and working there? Did you know that plans are in motion to establish a satellite phone network which would allow said colonists to communicate with one another? Well, it's all true... and more! According to a report, NASA and the British National Space Centre (BNSC) are preparing a trial phone network to be deployed on the Moon. The system, called MoonLite, will be comparable to the satellite phone networks of the 80's and 90's here on Earth, and will be used to facilitate communication between occupants on the base and robots and workers which are out and about. The satellites will handle data as well as voice communication, with 3kbps downstream and 2kbps up -- though we're told Verizon will control the entire system, with plans to bottleneck speed at will.

[Via PHONE Magazine]

[Pismodude @ Feb 20th 2008 12:17AM]

good

[paul34 @ Feb 20th 2008 12:17AM]

>> 3kbps downstream and 2kbps

Well, looks like the future colonists will have to make do with ASCII porn.

[waiownsyou @ Feb 20th 2008 12:25AM]

Or with pictures like we did in 1998.

"OH YEAH BABY. LET ME IMAGINE YOU DO THINGS YOU NEVER WILL." *SKEET*

[Blake Bowen @ Feb 20th 2008 12:38AM]

Wai, if you were stuck with a 3 kilobaud modem in 1998, I pity you.

[ethana2 @ Feb 20th 2008 2:17AM]

A sane people would never send a person into space for any extended period of time without a partner.

[Rudy @ Feb 20th 2008 6:04AM]

http://www.vizada.com/355_1

An established high-performance satellite link, Inmarsat. The page states:

Voice: 4 kbps service

Wouldn't that show that 3kbps/2kbps is enough for lunar communications? :)

[Juaquin @ Feb 20th 2008 12:18AM]

Wait - you can send data with 3kbps/2kbps? Isn't this the future? We can build a base on the moon, but the people there can barely send each other a text message?

[Jordan @ Feb 20th 2008 12:23AM]

Wow, that is really bad quality. At least I think it is, maybe I don't know what I am talking about. But radio is about 64kbps, imagine how choppy that would be. I probably just don't know what I'm talking about.

[Juaquin @ Feb 20th 2008 1:24AM]

I'm pretty sure Engadget screwed up and that's meant to be mbps. Otherwise I would demand that we pull all of NASA's funding immediately and beat them over the head. I bet walki-talkies are capable of more than a couple kbps.

[netdroid9 @ Feb 20th 2008 2:00AM]

I bet walkie-talkies can keep a perfect signal over millions of kilometers of nothing but electromagnetic interference too >.>

[ben @ Feb 20th 2008 12:20AM]

"Yeah, my name's Biff and I'm looking for Holden MaGroin."

"Well, how about Oliver Clothes"

"Well could you just give him this message that he can f--- off, whoever you are, you can f--- off too"

[ben @ Feb 20th 2008 12:21AM]

Clothesoff - >

[Alex Johnson @ Feb 20th 2008 12:24AM]

How is this the first time I'm hearing about NASA building a moonbase? Who is the head of NASA now, Dr. Evil?

[Robots, Take Over, Please @ Feb 20th 2008 12:32AM]

I don't know...how is this the first time you've heard about the moon base?

And uh, no, it would be Mike Griffin whose in charge of NASA at the moment.

[Kyle Burghart @ Feb 20th 2008 12:41AM]

Hell yeah!! Go Dr. Evil. Now we will have Big Boy space shuttles launching to the moon!

[Kyle Burghart @ Feb 20th 2008 12:42AM]

Hell yeah!! Go Dr. Evil. Now we will have Big Boy space shuttles launching to the moon!

[waiownsyou @ Feb 20th 2008 12:24AM]

Yeah, go Clinton! WOOOH!

[Amit @ Feb 20th 2008 12:27AM]

Hahaha, Morse code is here to stay

[Flashpoint @ Feb 20th 2008 12:31AM]

First of all, I'd hope that any communications between moonbases, satellites WHATEVER is mixed between FIBER OPTICS, WIFI and high bandwidth satellite.

The Internet on future bases should be protected using the best state of the art firewalls and anti-bug, spam technology.

Anyone caught hacking the system of making malicious viruses should be SHOVED INTO A F*CKIN AIRLOCK AND RELEASED INTO THE VACUUM OF SPACE.

[Pat H @ Feb 20th 2008 12:40AM]

3kbps downstream and 2kbps upstream?! Are you guys sure it's not supposed to be in mbps? Just find it hard to believe that satellite communication (especially for robotic control and data systems) would top out at early 90's speeds.

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 20th 2008 1:01AM]

Yeah, that's wrong... I don't know if it's that I suck at telecom, or this is really f'ed up, but, as far as I know, 3kbps isn't enough to transmit voice... not even delayed (more than it will already be because of the distance)

[Steve A. @ Feb 20th 2008 1:28AM]

Darklight - I don't think latency will be too much of an issue. The transmission will travel at the speed of light (just under 300,000 km /sec) and the mean distance to the Moon from the Earth is 384,000 km. So they'll have about 1.2 seconds between transmit and receive. Not quite enough to play counterstrike, but easy enough to talk or remotely control robots.

[Andir3.0 @ Feb 20th 2008 4:40AM]

Well, according to the phone companies, 9600 bps is fast enough for voice transmission. VOIP however, is MUCH more.

I was told this back in the day when our analog phones were switched to digital connections. The phone company would only guarantee 9600bps unless you paid for premium tier service, then they would only guarantee up to 28.8Kbps. 56K was only available if you subscribed to their 56K dedicated lines at a nice premium. I'm so glad broadband came along!

[computer.dude.28 @ Feb 20th 2008 9:12AM]

From the read link..
"Data throughput in the MoonLite system would range from up to 3kbps for the downlink and up to 2kbps for the uplink"
.. Wtf??

[DT @ Feb 20th 2008 12:49AM]

Can you repeat that? I can't hear you over the Big Bang.

[Bob @ Feb 20th 2008 12:55AM]

will they (VZ) have a 99$ plan there too ?

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Feb 20th 2008 1:01AM]

I'm doing this as hard as I can.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Feb 20th 2008 1:02AM]

Who is the joker who decided to put a picture of a bomb in this article?

[Tom Oliveri @ Feb 20th 2008 1:06AM]

wow.. i wouldn't buy stocks in it..

[Nathan @ Feb 20th 2008 2:34AM]

Oh you mean you wouldn't buy stock in an organization that is neither publicly traded nor a business? You wouldn't buy stock in a government organization that doesn't even sell stock? That's probably a good idea.

[KazSur @ Feb 20th 2008 9:41AM]

Hey.... Everything can be bought... or some part of it... Just need the right amount of cash/power/contacts etc..

[Reader @ Feb 20th 2008 1:26AM]

They should just use WiFi or something because 3/2 kbps is utterly terrible. A cantenna network would own their system that will most likely cost millions.

[Will H. @ Feb 20th 2008 1:38AM]

"I hope you can hear this because I'm doing it as hard as I can." -Moononite

[Charon72M @ Feb 20th 2008 1:51AM]

In all actuality, 3 kbps is sufficient to control robots or send basic text messages, which should be about all that they need. If you want to transmit voice, 2 or 3 kbps is just barely recognizable (and even then you probably need special equipment to translate the noise). Telephones use 8 kbps, and also use special equipment to compress and expand the data. As for video, you'd get a blob at best. Downloading porn (or other pictures if you really want) would take between maybe a dozen seconds and a few minutes, depending on the picture quality, or several minutes for a low-quality and short movie. Although NASA likely monitors that...

[ethana2 @ Feb 20th 2008 2:08AM]

phonetic text + sphinx/festival FTW!

kan yw hyr my naw?
lawd in klyr, huwmy.
güd!

[ethana2 @ Feb 20th 2008 2:14AM]

As you can tell, english is horrible for representing phonetics (as well as many other things). I wish it death. Unfortunately, 90% of the world uses it. Wait, this sounds familiar... ^_^
...on that note, with so many people calling it a 'standard', I'm surprised microsoft hasn't made their own spoken language yet. Can you get worse than english? Traditional chinese perhaps?

I'm going to fork lojban and give it an expanded phonetic base when I get the time, and port some of its vocabulary concepts... although I think those may be lacking a bit as well..

[AJ in the East Bay @ Feb 20th 2008 2:17AM]

MoonLite? MOONLITE? Is that the best NASA could come up with?

[Wellard @ Feb 20th 2008 2:47AM]

Damn! Can you imagine the roaming charges?!

[Charles @ Feb 20th 2008 2:55AM]

I hope you can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can. I love the Mooninites

[jeanrivera @ Feb 20th 2008 5:17AM]

Don't worry AT&T will get there fast enough and the will put some gsm coverage in the mooon the only bad thing about it they wont be able to use the iphone :-(

[Rich @ Feb 20th 2008 5:28AM]

I wonder who will roll out a 3G network first - T-Mobile or the Moon?

[Alex Padilla @ Feb 20th 2008 8:48AM]

I actually new about this. NASA and the government released these plans either last year or in late 2006. This coincides with plans to recreate Earth-to-space transportation using designs modeled much like the Apollo program (rockets broken down into stages with internal, independent landing craft). All this is to get back to the moon, which kinda makes me think we never got there in the first place. Oh, the conspiracy theories...

[Ignignokt @ Feb 20th 2008 10:59AM]

Your jambox is now his, by way of our actions.

[chris @ Feb 20th 2008 11:16AM]

in a bio-dome, shore and baldwin voice: no way!

[Joe @ Feb 20th 2008 11:42AM]

This is beyond ridiculous ... why not get cell systems working on Earth first. Secondly, having government pseudo industries design this means it won't work, will cost 200 times as much, and be obsolete before it's deployed. I'd suggest they turn a few dozen high school seniors on to the project who will get it done in record time, within budget, and a higher speeds.

[jbcaro @ Feb 20th 2008 11:46AM]

I vote to 'man' it with the likes of Lt. Ellis from UFO fame.

[Dan S. @ Feb 20th 2008 11:52AM]

I hope they keep an eye out for the Gorgatron, for even the highest level Moon Master, has no hope against the mighty Gorgatron.

[av8or @ Feb 20th 2008 1:41PM]

watch out or he'll destroy all your craps

[Kali @ Feb 20th 2008 10:05PM]

How do I buy real estate on Mars? Its either an investment on Mars or in Newark.