[amsat-bb] Internet Routers in Space

[Timothy J. Salo]

I found an interesting story about Cisco's Internet Routers in
Space (IRIS) project.

"Cisco's new-market ambitions extend into orbit"
<http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070709-ciscos-new-market-ambitions-extend-into.html>

Cisco's router will be hosted by Intelsat IS-14.  (Is this the
platform on which AMSAT had hoped for a ride?)

In my view, AMSAT has perhaps two good stories that might
warrant cheap or free launches: education (developing the
next generation of space scientists and engineers) and
research (in this case, IP in space).

I believe that the proposed Advanced Communications Package
(ACP) had a strong research story to tell.  The ACP, like
Cisco's IRIS project, probably would have been an IP router
in space (a view I articulated in my 2008 AMSAT paper,
although the general idea had been mentioned earlier, I think).

I claim that the ACP project could have provided the basis
for a story about the relevant and cutting-edge research
that the project would have enabled.  The story might have
been competitive enough to, for example, win support via
the DoD Space Test Program (I wrote a Symposium paper about
that, too).  Or, maybe we could have teamed with Cisco.
(Obviously, we have built a lot more satellites than has
Cisco...)  The primary point being that I believe that
organizations with money are more likely to fund a research
project, than our usual alternatives (e.g., emergency
communications [there is a ton of bandwidth in orbit these
days, to mix metaphors], developing skilled radio operators
[who needs them?], contesting ["you want a really expensive
satellite to do what???"], or fostering international
understanding [in the age of the Internet]).

But, to take advantage of these [alleged] opportunities, we
need to get much better at creating and telling a research
story.  And, this would require a dramatic (perhaps impossible)
cultural change for AMSAT.  Voice communications would no longer
be the primary motivation or justification for a project; it
would merely be a nice side-effect.

I suppose that the real difference between AMSAT's ACP and
Cisco's IRIS is that Cisco has a development team and has
more money to pay launch fees.  But, maybe AMSAT could have
been a subcontractor...

-tjs