Welcome to the Second Life Forums Archive

These forums are CLOSED. Please visit the new forums HERE

Second LIfe in Space?
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
04-03-2007 20:45
Do the astronauts in the space station have the computers and internet access required to run SL and connect to the grid?
_____________________
-

So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.

I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to

http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne

-

http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.

Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard,
Robin, and Ryan

-
Blues Stilman
Registered User
Join date: 19 Feb 2006
Posts: 15
04-03-2007 20:50
I highly doubt that the International Space Station is equiped with suitable broadband. Satalite internet on earth is incapable of playing online video games due to a lag in the signal, I doubt it would work better in space.
Peggy Paperdoll
A Brat
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 4,383
04-03-2007 20:51
Probably. :) But I bet they wouldn't dare do it............I mean Astronault Tom Spacewalker logging into SL as Missy Toetapper!!! LOL

Oh the jokes at Mission Control. :)
Peggy Paperdoll
A Brat
Join date: 15 Apr 2006
Posts: 4,383
04-03-2007 20:57
From: Blues Stilman
I highly doubt that the International Space Station is equiped with suitable broadband. Satalite internet on earth is incapable of playing online video games due to a lag in the signal, I doubt it would work better in space.



Satellites used for any communications are stationed at geo stationary orbit............about 12,500 miles above the earth at the equator. Space shuttles are rarely above 600 miles. That lag you speak of is really minimal. I'm sure it could work but the antenae on the shuttle would have to track the satellite and even switch to others when they get shaded by the earth.

I think it's possible....but not likely. :)
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
04-03-2007 21:19
26,200 miles is the radius of a geosynchronous orbit, isn't it?

I believe the ISS is roughly 200 miles up.
_____________________
-

So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.

I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to

http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne

-

http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.

Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard,
Robin, and Ryan

-
Dnate Mars
Lost
Join date: 27 Jan 2004
Posts: 1,309
04-03-2007 22:28
From: Peggy Paperdoll
Satellites used for any communications are stationed at geo stationary orbit............about 12,500 miles above the earth at the equator. Space shuttles are rarely above 600 miles. That lag you speak of is really minimal. I'm sure it could work but the antenae on the shuttle would have to track the satellite and even switch to others when they get shaded by the earth.

I think it's possible....but not likely. :)


Have you ever tried to use 2 way communication with a sat? There are huge latency issue with those distances. At, 22,300 miles up, ans since the signal moves at the speed of light, you get a total distance of 44600/c = .24 seconds for communications to and from the satellite. Add in everything else, and yes it would make it near impossible to play a game like SL.
_____________________
Visit my website: www.dnatemars.com
From: Cristiano Midnight
This forum is weird.
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
04-03-2007 22:59
The ISS is not in geosynchronous orbit, it's much lower, about 200 miles up.

No communcations satellite need be involved. Ground to ISS should be workable.

Heres a question a child addressed to astronaut Janice Voss:

From: someone
Do the astronauts have internet on board and can they watch TV in space?

We have equivalents; there is an e-mail system, but of course we don't have any real links. You're up in orbit, so there's only a radio link. You type it in, just like you type in your regular e-mail, and it gets saved to a file and sent down to the ground over a radio link, and that gets dumped into a server on the ground which gets back into the e-mail system so it looks like e-mail and it looks like internet access, but it's not true access that way, it's just sort of simulated. It's a great way to keep in touch with family and friends on the private links. On the public links, it's a good way to have discussions about issues that allow you to have a longer discussion by e-mail than it's convenient to over the air-to-ground link. TV is the same way, we don't have actual TV, but they can load files into the e-mail just like you get streaming video files that you can click on in your regular e-mail and they send those up, and you can click on them and watch the video.


That, however, was back in 2003 - things might have improved a bit since then.

If streaming the 3D world is too bandwidth consumptive, the astronauts might still be able to access the SL voice chat system.

There's a nice page of links at http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/cleo/ about the Cisco router in space.
_____________________
-

So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.

I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to

http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne

-

http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.

Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard,
Robin, and Ryan

-
Tegg Bode
FrootLoop Roo Overlord
Join date: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 5,707
04-03-2007 23:14
I would have imagined communication from shuttles to transmit to the nearest system compatable satilite rather than to ground and seeing we used to bounce internet signals via satilite (now I belive it's fibre optic cable) would have thought some decent speeds were possible till you headed out to the moon anyway.
Or possibly shuttles do bounce to ground first as the satilites aren't pointed to recieve from up there?
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
04-03-2007 23:40
Geosychronous orbit is fine for some communications purposes, but not for all.

The speed of light is roughly 186,000 miles per second, right?

And geosynchronous orbit is around 26 thousand miles up.

So 26,000 divided by 186,000 is .139 seconds each way. Too slow for SL purposes.

Travel time at light speed 200 miles up to the ISS would only be .001 of a second or so.
_____________________
-

So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.

I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to

http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne

-

http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.

Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard,
Robin, and Ryan

-
Morwen Bunin
Everybody needs a hero!
Join date: 8 Dec 2005
Posts: 1,743
04-04-2007 00:10
Doh... and here I thought after seeing the title of the thread that we soon could travel to another planet in SL..

"Can all travellers for Mars station VI please go to flightdeck 23. Spaceshuttle Hot Red will soon depart from there."

:)

Morwen.
Warda Kawabata
Amityville Horror
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 1,300
04-04-2007 00:11
From: SuezanneC Baskerville
So 26,000 divided by 186,000 is .139 seconds each way. Too slow for SL purposes.


Are you sure? That sounds a lot like the typical amount of lag I usually experience in SL.
_____________________
:) I rent out land on private islands. Message me in-world for details. :)
Tegg Bode
FrootLoop Roo Overlord
Join date: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 5,707
04-04-2007 00:16
We only use the speed of light thought to get from one side of the planet to the other, what's the length of that cable run?
Infiniview Merit
The 100 Trillionth Cell
Join date: 27 Apr 2006
Posts: 845
04-04-2007 04:14
Wait I want to be able to buy land on other planets from within SL, And build a spaceship
to fly there.
When can we do that? :p

Might even bring land prices down.
_____________________

http://slurl.com/secondlife/puea/126/10/60/
AWM Mars
Scarey Dude :¬)
Join date: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 3,398
04-04-2007 04:29
From: Warda Kawabata
Are you sure? That sounds a lot like the typical amount of lag I usually experience in SL.

The ping rates you see reported in SL, user and sim are both measured in milliseconds (msec).. the quoted .139 is hundreths of a second (to three decimal places). SL would be playable but dont try playing Tringo....
_____________________
*** Politeness is priceless when received, cost nothing to own or give, yet many cannot afford -

Why do you only see typo's AFTER you have clicked submit? **
http://www.wba-advertising.com
http://www.nex-core-mm.com
http://www.eml-entertainments.com
http://www.v-innovate.com