Re: FTL COMMUNICATIONS

Interestingly, there is a group working to:

"define the architecture and protocols necessary to permit
interoperation
of the Internet resident on Earth with other remotely located internets
resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit."

http://www.ipnsig.org/aboutstudy.htm

Neato.

--
Ray Forsythe - erf2@gte.net - www.wombatzone.com

At 15:02 2/26/02 +0000, you wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 08:32:59AM -0600, DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote:
>>BUT the merchant fleets, comprised of  both corporate and
independently
>>owned  vessels, would go where there was a need to go with cargo,
>>passengers, mail  ( both official and private) , news, and rumors.
>
>If you have an internet-style packet-based routeing system, of course,
>you get a courier network throughout civilised space basically free.
>Here's how it could work:
>
>Each message has a header which describes (among other things) its
>destination. A message, when it's sent, is broadcast to every
>participating ship in the local system, which stores it. After the ship
>has jumped, it checks the message headers; if that message has already
>been in the new system, the ship deletes its local copy. Otherwise, it
>broadcasts it again (possibly intermediated by a planetary booster
>transmitter, if necessary). Eventually, the station to which the
message
>is addressed picks it up (probably in multiple copies, which is no bad
>thing).
>
>You'd need to have an expiry system - probably, the more you pay, the
>longer your message will hang around before being deleted - to avoid
>total congestion of the airwaves, but this will transmit messages
>through well-travelled systems nearly as fast as a dedicated courier
>net, and at much lower cost.
>
>Roger