The network would help astronauts returning to the Moon. The net
has taken a giant leap that has extended cyberspace into outer
space. Nasa has successfully transmitted images to and from a
spacecraft 20 million miles away with a communications system
based on the net. The Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN)
technology is designed to work across vast distances where
response times can be measured in days. Further tests of DTN are
due to take place on the International Space Station (ISS) in
2009. "This is the first step in creating a totally new space
communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," said
Adrian Hooke, manager of space-networking architecture, at Nasa
HQ in Washington. The pioneering work on the DTN was done a
decade ago by Vint Cerf - one of the creators of the net's basic
communications protocols. That work led to the creation of DTN
which is extremely tolerant of the delays and disruptions that
are likely to occur when data is shuttling between planets,
satellites, space stations an