Internet on Mars

[Bloodyvalley]

Well we know that Martians will have Internet: http://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to-mars/what-will-the-astronauts-do-on-mars

 

 

But what if we ran a cable from Earth to Mars? How would it work? What kind of ping would we be able to get?

 

What about space debris? Can it damage it?

 

 

Thoughts?

[Nexxus]

And the award for the series of dumbest questions of the day goes too...

[thekeemo]

All communication between Mars and Earth goes through satellites. Because of the distance, there is a substantial delay. As communication signals travel at the speed of light, this means that it can take between 3 and 22 minutes for the information to reach the other end, so a phone call would not be practical.

[vanished]

your ping would be in the 10s if not hundreds of thousands of milliseconds, and a cable would never work

[Bloodyvalley]

series of dumbest questions of the day goes too...

How the fuck is this a dumb question, asshole? It's going to fucking happen

 

 

Are you calling science dumb? Because scientists are the ones who think of the craziest things.

[Bloodyvalley]

your ping would be in the 10s if not hundreds of thousands of milliseconds, and a cable would never work

Why would it not work?

[Guest]

your ping would be in the 10s if not hundreds of thousands of milliseconds, and a cable would never work

remember...

the moon still has faster internet then 99.99% of America 

Well technically the ISS.

but you get what I mean

[spwath]

How the fuck is this a dumb question, asshole? It's going to fucking happen

 

 

Are you calling science dumb? Because scientists are the ones who think of the craziest things.

Because uh... running a cable to mars....

 

That would not work at all...

[Adahop]

How the fuck is this a dumb question, asshole? It's going to fucking happen

 

 

Are you calling science dumb? Because scientists are the ones who think of the craziest things.

I can't tell if you're joking or not, but either way this comment is hilarious.

[ThatOneRussian]

the cable wouldnt work because every second the distance between the earth and mars changes. both planets rotate and also you know lets just hook up a wire to the next mission to mars. see if that works.

[Guest]

Because uh... running a cable to mars....

 

That would not work at all...

the cables would like

need to be flexible 

and they would need to move in as the earth would as well as mars

and need to handle extreme amounts of tension 

[Adahop]

remember...

the moon still has faster internet then 99.99% of America 

Well technically the ISS.

but you get what I mean

That's because the ISS is only 250 miles away from the surface of Earth. Mars is an average of 141,000,000 miles away.

[spwath]

the cables would like

need to be flexible 

and they would need to move in as the earth would as well as mars

and need to handle extreme amounts of tension 

And its not like mars always stays in the same place relitive to earth

[Interfectorem]

Why would it not work?

Electrons move at about 2,200 KM/S, which is less than 1% the speed of light, and EM waves travel at or near the speed of light, so that would theoretically take 4.3 minutes to 22 minutes (Depending where on the orbit each planet is). Using a cable would take much, much longer. Also, a cable that is that long would need a lot of slack since the planets aren't the same distance from each other at all times. If you just think about it, it's highly unreasonable at least with today's tech.

[Guest]

And its not like mars always stays in the same place relitive to earth

so add on billions upon billions of miles to slack and there we go

totally possible...

 

 

 

 

 

 

in science fiction 

[ThatOneRussian]

Electrons move at about 2,200 KM/S, which is less than 1% the speed of light, and EM waves travel at or near the speed of light, so that would theoretically take 4.3 minutes to 22 minutes (Depending where on the orbit each planet is). Using a cable would take much, much longer. Also, a cable that is that long would need a lot of slack since the planets aren't the same distance from each other at all times. If you just think about it, it's highly unreasonable at least with today's tech.

what youre saying id have 4.3  minutes of input lag when playing on minecraft servers lol jk

[Guest]

Electrons move at about 2,200 KM/S, which is less than 1% the speed of light, and EM waves travel at or near the speed of light, so that would theoretically take 4.3 minutes to 22 minutes (Depending where on the orbit each planet is). Using a cable would take much, much longer. Also, a cable that is that long would need a lot of slack since the planets aren't the same distance from each other at all times. If you just think about it, it's highly unreasonable at least with today's tech.

then again...

we cant really colonize mars with out current tech...

but yeah, multi-planet WiFi = a no go

[Interfectorem]

what youre saying id have 4.3  minutes of input lag when playing on minecraft servers lol jk

In the best possible case scenario yes (Using EM waves), haha

[vanished]

Why would it not work?

 

There are several reasons.  First of all ,the amount of material required would simply be obscene.  Second, the resistance incurred over that distance would completely obliterate your signal.  Also, space radiation would interfere probably.  And it could be hit by debris.

 

Then there is the problem that the distance between the earth and mars changes by millions of kilometers as they go around the sun, since mars takes longer to do so.

 

Also how would you build it and get it in place?  And how would it not rip under it's own weight on either end due to the gravity of the planets it's attached to?

 

But how to connect the planets is going to be a legitimate question one day.  I can guarantee it won't be with a cable, but we are going to need some way of essentially making sure all planets colonized by humans remain connected to the same internet.  Without using quantum entanglement there is no way around the issue of multi-minute ping, but reasonable bandwidths should be possible with radio communication.

[ThatOneRussian]

In the best possible case scenario yes (Using EM waves), haha

yes. good. good. will own newbs on mc hungergames servers

[ALwin]

Ok aside from the hilarious idea about running a cable from Earth to Mars, the idea of a wireless Internet connection between the two planets is possible.  To improve performance there would have to be a local server and data farm on Mars to hold a cache of data and be updated/synchronized with servers back on Earth regularly before it becomes outdated.  Bandwidth may be an issue, and also time lag as the distance between the planets change as they orbit around the Sun.  Not sure if there will be a communications black out during the periods where Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, but there may be ways to counter that by bouncing the signals off satellites placed in other parts of the solar system.

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

You would notice this thing called "speed of light" and notice that your ping would be 3-4 minutes IIRC when the earth and Mars are at their closest point. At their furthest point from each other it would take even longer.

[Interfectorem]

Assuming a constant electron speed of 2,200 km/s and the AVERAGE distance of 225,000,000 km to Mars (Varies from 56,000,000 km to 401,000,000 km), it would take data 28.4 hours for a one way trip. As mentioned before, this could range from 7 hours to 50.6 hours. That's IF the data or signal isn't completely degraded by the time it reaches its destination. Not to mention the other physical complications of have a cable that long and how you would tether the cable to each planet and deal with the changing distance.

[KE2012]

I hate to say never, but we will never have a cable from earth to Mars for various reasons, the first being that the distance between earth and Mars is never a constant, so the length would have to have some method of changing, also there are times of the year where the cable would basically have to either pass directly through the sun, or go around it.

 

The second being that despite our best anti-interference technology, the received signal at the far end would be in not be coherent or representative of the transmitted signal, even after analysis. 

 

Thirdly, the cost of building such a cable is not feasible.

 

Lastly, In order for the cable to have a resistance low enough for feasible use it would have a large radius, and made out of superconductors. (Not cheap)

[Bloodyvalley]

There is no gravity in space so essentially you can just leave a bunch of it there and when Mars gets farther away it won't break

 

but what about gravity on mars or gravity on earth

 

would you just see a cable going right through the sky lol from earth or from mars

 

and connect to a small ethernet port on a server or something

 

 

what about extreme temperatures in our atmosphere

how would the cable handle that