THE MOON, MARS, NASA, AND THE INTERNET

Now, while we're on the subject of "strange space news," many of you sent me these articles, and I freely confess that I had to think about them for a long time before blogging about their contents. I do so today, not because my thoughts have achieved any state of consistency or organization, but because the story is important enough to put out there, along with my usual "high octane speculation."

The story, when you really think about it, is bizarre, for it seems that NASA is testing internet links to the Moon(to put the matter "country simple"):

NASA achieves 19.44Mbps data transfer to the moon, sets its sights on Mars

Is NASA bringing high speed Internet Access to the Moon?

My first thought, upon reading these two articles, and particularly the second one, was "Are they kidding? Internet to the Moon so they can play their favorite Facebook games and have video-chats with Houston":

"Space travel might just have got a little more entertaining, as any future colonists living on the Moon may be able to enjoy all the benefits of online access that their Earth-bound compatriots do, thanks to a new breakthrough by American researchers.

"Working with NASA, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory has for the first time demonstrated that data communication technology that can provide those outside of our planet with the broadband connectivity currently in place on Earth.

"The connection is stable enough to enable large data transfers and even provide high-definition video streaming, meaning astronauts would be able to communicate with friends or colleagues back on earth via video chat.

"Alternatively, it could allow Moon dwellers to catch up on their favourite television shows, the researchers suggested."

Television shows. Internet. Video chats. How convenient, especially if one is planning a permanent presence on the Moon, or better, already has one (or many). Hence: my first high octane speculation. Given the idea that many have, including this author, that we're never told about such advances until long after they are in place and already functional, the revelation of the capability becomes rather suggestive, and notably, I'm not the one entertaining the high octane speculation in this case; the second article is the one doing so.  And the bottom line of this revelation is clear: it represents a determination to make permanent human presence in space and on our celestial neighbors a real possibility. Additionally, it makes the idea more appealing. After all, why would one want to colonize the Moon if there were none of the creature comforts of home?

But I suspect there is much more going on here than meets the eye, and it's not just about the creature comforts of planet Earth.

Consider the boon and utility of such high-speed data transfer that is stable over long distances for space communications. More importantly, consider it in the context of yesterday's blog about the desire of some to archive humanity's most important and ancient texts. The ability to place radiation-shielded shelters for such texts on a nearby celestial body, along with the means to transfer those texts electronically rather than physically, would adequately serve the purpose(and provides a clue as to how it might have been done in the past). Similarly, we've seen recent stories about NASA using scanning technologies and 3D printing to scan objects on Mars, transmit the data to Earth, and print a replica of the object here. By the same token, one might conceive of a scenario of encountering something that looks like stored data, and with the ability to scan it, transmit it to Earth.  It's a convenient technology to have around if, say, one were looking for holographic records of bygone eras, something like the Tablets of Destinies perhaps... but I won't go there. It's enough that this story comes out in the context of other stories about space-based archives on the Moon. I suspect you've already worked out all the potential high octane implications...

...See you on the flip side...

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

15 Comments

  1. Margaret on June 5, 2014 at 6:39 pm

    More dot connecting and speculation: Google recently announced plans to launch 180 satellites into space for internet access across the Earth (and the Moon?) … also useful to transmit human genetic code to the moon for 3D printed future interplanetary, space-adapted humans created in underground ‘nurseries’. Re moon bases, Richard Sauder suggests the possibility in his book “Underground Bases and Tunnels”. As early as the ‘80s, under contract to NASA, both Los Alamos and Texas A&M had plans using nuclear subselene tunneling machines to melt tunnels for a lunar colony. http://www.whale.to/b/sauder4.html
    Re printing humans on other planets: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/our-best-bet-for-colonizing-space-may-be-printing-humans-on-other-planets



    • Robert Barricklow on June 5, 2014 at 7:42 pm

      Thanks for the links.
      I’ve often thought about: non-location –entanglements at a distance. Focusing & controlling this phenomenon with some out-of-this-world technologies, would simply erase unimaginable distances. Presumably you would need some way of getting “there” with a “receiver”. But perhaps that could be achieved via “coordinates.
      Great post, got me going way, way, out “there”.



    • marcos toledo on June 5, 2014 at 11:49 pm

      The idea of creating avatars of humans on extra-solar planets isn’t new. The novel Orchid Cage uses the idea of using local minerals to create pseudo humans to explore alien worlds. DAW publish that book about thirty to forty years ago I forgotten the authors name.



  2. Daryl Davis on June 5, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    I can’t imagine why it would be necessary to seed this technology into university research, as opposed to maintaining its safe secrecy, except that such “disclosure” has been compelled by some recent, advanced technological deployment from competing regional groups.

    In other words, we may be reaching a stage in which commercial space competition, or even open space hostility, between regional powers can no longer be avoided or largely hidden. In response, we therefore find it necessary to outfit even our regular troops with ultra high altitude/space-compatible gear — much as it became necessary to “mainstream” night-vision goggles and fiber optics in order to insure our regular military’s supremacy during the Cold War — whether said “war” was part theater or not.

    Apparently, the show must go on. Boys will be boys.



    • Joseph P. Farrell on June 5, 2014 at 6:46 pm

      Great speculations! Thanks Daryl!



      • Daryl Davis on June 6, 2014 at 10:18 am

        You’re very welcome. Thank you for seeking the truth — or, at least, an interesting conjecture — anywhere it may be found.



  3. Sophia on June 5, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    As the Toronto Blue Jays currently sit atop the American League East, clearly some great catastrophe is about to befall the Earth. This plausibly explains the rush to move humanity off planet and to back up humanities hard drive, so to speak.



  4. Mike on June 5, 2014 at 3:07 pm

    Interesting. Imagine if one could get their own HD camera equipped wifi controlled mini rover on the surface of the moon to explore at one’s leisure. Great opportunity for a Kickstart campaign where interested parties could take turns steering or picking destinations for different investment levels.



  5. patentable on June 5, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    US Patent No. 6271877 (Filed in 1999)
    Direct broadcast imaging satellite system apparatus and method for providing real-time, continuous monitoring of earth from geostationary earth orbit
    US Patent No. 6271877 (Filed in 1999)
    ABSTRACT
    A system, method and apparatus for collecting an distributing real-time, high resolution images of the Earth from GEO include an electro-optical sensor based on multi-megapixel two-dimensional charge coupled device (CCD) arrays mounted on a geostationary platform. At least four, three-axis stabilized satellites in Geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) provide worldwide coverage, excluding the poles. Image data that is collected at approximately 1 frame/sec, is broadcast over high-capacity communication links (roughly 15 MHZ bandwidth) providing real-time global coverage of the Earth at sub-kilometer resolutions directly to end users. This data may be distributed globally from each satellite through a system of space and ground telecommunication links. Each satellite carries at least two electro-optical imaging systems that operate at visible wavelengths so as to provide uninterrupted views of the Earth’s full disk and coverage at sub-kilometer spatial resolutions of most or selected portions of the Earth’s surface.
    https://www.google.com/patents/US6271877?dq=6271877&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vr6QU-uMPI__oQSty4DoDQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA

    US Patent Application Publication 2005/0083412 (Filed in 2003)
    Internet interactive realtime video image acquisition system based in low earapplication th orbit
    ABSTRACT
    A system, method, and apparatus for obtaining and distributing live and real-time video imagery of the Earth, Earth’s local space environment, the Moon, celestial bodies and any events or objects that are visible to a Low Earth Orbiting space based video imaging system that is interactively controlled by any operator using an internet connected computer. A LEO spacecraft serves as the platform for the suite of multiaxis controlled video image sensors. The spacecraft’s communication system provides the high data rate downlink (and lower rate uplink) through one or several or multiplexed S- or X-band transceivers. The tranceiver(s) broadcast the video stream down to one or more remote transceiving stations sited around the world. The tranceiving stations are directly connected to the internet and provide live real-time streaming of the downlinked imagery data. The internet connected remote ground stations also provide a real-time interactive control environment (less than 3 seconds for interactive loop) whereby any operator who is authorized can actively control one or more of the onboard video image sensors.
    https://www.google.com/patents/US20050083412?dq=2005-0083412+A1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HMCQU4zaBMbvoASmo4HQBA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA



    • BetelgeuseT-1 on June 6, 2014 at 8:37 pm

      When you talked about images from a GEO orbit, I had to think about something I read some time ago.
      The suggestion was made that the famous Piri Reis map that shows the South American coast, South Atlantic, a bit of Africa and the Antarctic continent (without the ice), matches exactly the view you would have from a Geo Stationary Orbit (GSO)…



      • Joseph P. Farrell on June 7, 2014 at 7:07 am

        Yea it seems to me I remember reading about that somewhere too…



  6. loisg on June 5, 2014 at 11:25 am

    This is so interesting, so I wondered who’s idea it was to research this topic in the first place, and I discovered that MIT is part of the JPL Strategic University Research Partnership (SURP) Program, and internetworking was one of the stated strategic topics of SURP, which makes the “already there and needing it” idea very compelling.
    BTW, one of the other topics is Earth analogs to planets. Where have I heard that idea before?!



  7. marcos toledo on June 5, 2014 at 10:52 am

    The question is how long these secret Moon-Mars bases been functioning and are they in secret contact with extra-solar intelligence.



    • DownunderET on June 5, 2014 at 2:31 pm

      Hi Marcos:
      I’m with you, there is no doubt in my mind that there are Moon and Mars bases, and NASA’ public relations department is just doing what they are told to do, release rubbish. This is another “drip feed” release by a government department which has been in denial for a long time, and it will continue for as long as the Secret Space Program guys want it to.



  8. Ramura on June 5, 2014 at 7:47 am

    But do they have running potable water and hot baths? Those are essential. I won’t leave Earth without them… 🙂



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