ISS Astronaut Drives Rover From Space Station

http://nbcu.mo2do.net/s/18488/29?itemId=tag:dvice.com,2012://3.92554&fullPageURL=/archives/2012/11/iss-drives-rove.php The European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA conducted an experiment in late October that used the "interplanetary internet" to drive an earth-bound rover. Astronaut Sunita Williams used a laptop with experimental technology called Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol to control the rover using a network of connection points that more effectively controls data relay. That's a pretty cool feat on it's own, but it's just a starting point for what could be a way to more easily communicate with astronauts on Mars and beyond. Successful DTN protocol will be a huge improvement on how we relay information between here and the Mars rovers. For example, currently if there is a problem or interference such as solar storm causing disruption of the data transmission, all the data is lost. The DTN is basically like the Internet as we know it, but woven into a sophisticated network of nodes that act as data connection points to accommodate delays over the vast distances in space. Data gets stored from node to node and if there is an interruption, they hold the data....(cont)