Not that anyone is moving to the moon any time soon, but astronauts could continue their binge-watching habits in space thanks to researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab. The MIT/NASA lunar laser communication team has come up with a way to transmit large amounts of data from earth to the moon at broadband-wireless speed.
Lead researcher Mark Stevens says this kind of connectivity is valuable for many reasons.
"Certainly, keeping in contact with the base on earth would be huge," he said. "In my own research, having a broadband connection to the scientific database here on the earth is really, really valuable. And the astronauts and scientists who work on the moon would find that also. People would also probably like to stay in touch with family."
Right now, earth-to-moon communication is done through radio waves, uses thousands of watts of power, and moves at the speed of dial-up. The lunar laser communication team, on the other hand, has created a signal using four telescopes and a laser transmitter, which only takes up 40 watts of power. Not only is it more energy efficient, but faster than some of our wireless connections here on Earth.
"We could upload a typical one-hour TV episode in just a few minutes of time, and we can simultaneous stream live up to four HD video streams with our systems," he said.
Binge-watching potential aside, this could provide astronauts and scientists the opportunity to exchange information in real time.
"Imaging uses a lot of bandwidth, and I think what we will see in the future is missions that incorporate a lot more imaging, and even live video, and it’s going to be very, very exciting," he said.
Stevens and his team will unveil all the findings of their technology next month at the CLEO technical conference in San Jose.
