NASA scientists are preparing for the first interplanetary Internet ''gateway'' on the next Mars mission, a key telecommunications figure said Wednesday. The system would serve space exploration and link future astronauts in space with the earthly Internet. NASA is planning a series of Mars missions at two-yearly intervals starting in 2001, that would lead up to astronauts landing on the Red Planet. Cerf said the planners envision planetary networks that look very much like the Internet on Earth, but that something must be done to link the networks.
Distances pose a key problem.
It can take six hours to send a message from one planet to another, he said. The Transmission Control Protocol-Internet Protocol is the set of standards that lets any Internet message be read by any computer. Cerf said the equipment to be put on the next mission will be designed to let computers talk to each other over the time lags caused by the vast distances of outer space. While the Internet continues to grow rapidly on Earth, ''we still have a lot of work to do to cover the planet,'' he said. By The Associated Press Copyright 1999 Associated Press .