The Day Has Come, Anousheh Ansari Space Blog. This is the last post before the first woman space tourist heads into space. Is there wifi up there? This Xprize blog is part of our upcoming VIP program on WordPress.com. Update: This BBC article says “Ms Ansari says she will write the first blog from space.” I never would have guessed WP would be used from space!
Well they do have wifi on some airplanes which fly around 32,000 feet, so in theory maybe they could have wifi in space or at least part of the way up and if not, hackers around the world could unite with millions of can antennas or tricked out Linksys routers and access points that could be pointed at space to maybe shoot a signal to her? That would be cool!
The latency to/from space has got to be rather longer than what 802.11x is designed to operate with, so the transfer speeds would be agonizingly slow.
Amateur radio operators used to communicate digitally with Mir, and the ISS, as well as a handful of satellites; there was even a rudimentary BBS in space at one point. It took some decent antennas, though, and more than a handful of watts of power at each end, but it’s been done, at least in principal.
A big helical microwave antenna attached to a laptop would be a really hilarious sight, though. 🙂
The astronauts on the Station have access to e-mail through the iPAQ h5550. So they either have WiFi or docking cradles. If Mrs. Ansari has her blog configured for e-mail posts, then updating should be trivial using an astronaut’s Pocket PC. I can’t believe they don’t have Internet on the ISS, although NASA may not wish to deal with hackers and so have isolated the station.
Updating over Amateur Radio packet radio may not be possible. Because Anousheh Ansari’s flight was moved up dramatically, she was unable to get her amateur radio license. “Third party” traffic restrictions would prevent her from sending an e-mail via packet that could be re-loaded onto the Internet and sent to her blog. She will still be able to speak to licensed amateurs, should she have the time during her ISS stay.
I bet she updates from space, somehow. It’s just too cool to pass up.
Standard wordpress.com users are unable to blog by email, but it may well be part of the VIP program.
Ah, I host my own WordPress. Not that I’ve ever figured out how to blog by e-mail, but then again, I’ve never needed it so I never put much effort into it.
From space they can establish a wifi connection via satelite. Obviously they won’t have trouble doing this since NASA owns nearly 1/4 of the 200(+) satelites oribiting earth.