Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 20:11:05 CDT
From:
[email protected](Joe Abernathy)
Subject: text of chron-spacemail
Electronic mail beams shuttle's message home
8/5/91, Houston Chronicle, Page 1A
By JOE ABERNATHY and MARK CARREAU Copyright 1991, Houston Chronicle
Electronic mail networks, the message medium of the information age,
made their debut in the space age Sunday aboard the shuttle Atlantis
as part of an effort to develop a communications system for a future
space station.
Details of the test were being closely guarded because of concerns
over a possible hacker incident or "public free-for-all'' on the
nation's computer networks, according to one engineer involved with
the project. Privacy and medical ethics also loom large as issues.
Astronauts Shannon Lucid and James Adamson conducted the first
experiment with the e-mail system on Sunday afternoon, exchanging a
test message with Marcia Ivins, the shuttle communicator at Johnston
Space Center.
The connection flickered out of focus after only a few minutes because
of alignment problems with one of the satellites in the communications
link, according to the flight director at JSC.
The messages follow a winding path from the shuttle, to a satellite in
NASA's Tracking Data Relay Satellite System, to the main TDRSS ground
station in White Sands, New Mexico, back up to a commercial
communications satellite, then down to Houston, where they enter one
or more computer networks.
Further tests of the system will be conducted on each remaining day of
the flight, which continues through Sunday.
The shuttle tests are part of a larger project to develop computer and
communications systems for the space station Freedom, which the agency
plans to assemble during the late 1990s.
"These are all steps toward that goal, how we work in space,'' said
Byron Han of Apple Computer, whose machines are being used for this
stage of the experiment.
Electronic mail offers a new way for astronauts to stay in touch with
their families, Mission Control, and potentially, the millions of
people who use the nation's interlinked computer networks. It could
produce far-reaching change in the way scientists and others interact
with the space program.
Currently, only the shuttle communicator is allowed to talk with the
astronauts during a flight, except for a private medical conference
each day. E-mail could change that by letting any number of people
exchange information, while scientists and engineers on the ground
could assume direct control over their experiments in space.
One drawback is the potential for NASA to impose a virtual reign of
silence regarding sensitive information without anyone realizing that
such had been done.
E-mail, which is becoming commonplace in offices, is simply the
transmission of messages via computers to one or more people, using
electronic addresses. Users linked to the right networks can send
electronic messages or other data to specific recipients nearly
anywhere in the world ^-and now to space.
Han and fellow Apple employees Michael Silver and James Beninghaus
have donated their time to the project. They are using low-cost,
commercially available products, rather than the costly custom
products often used in science.
The e-mail will play a role in controlling experiments, electronic
flight information, and transfer of experiment results to the ground,
Han said, as well as sending data up to the shuttle.
In the future, the system might be used to transmit and manipulate
information from the many medical experiments NASA conducts. But this
raises a number of problems regarding privacy and medical ethics.
For example, one experiment in this flight seeks to correct a
blood-flow problem associated with weightlessness that causes some
astronauts to faint upon their return to Earth.
But this experiment is being monitored with the same Apple computer
that is playing host to the e-mail system. Even though the results
aren't being transmitted over computer networks this time, they might
be next time ^-and computer networks are notoriously insecure.
Inquisitive computer enthusiasts -- hackers -- are in fact one of
NASA's chief concerns in regard to the use of electronic mail.
The space agency initially sought to conduct the tests without
publicity, but word quickly percolated around the nation's computer
networks -- perhaps indicating that the concerns were justified.
A chorus of calls was heard requesting the e-mail address of the
astronauts -- but that raised another problem more pressing than any
threat from malicious hacking, that of capacity.
"We have things we need to accomplish with the limited amount of time
we have, and we do have a very limited amount of data we can move
between Mission Control and the orbiter,'' said Deborah Muratore, an
engineer in the space station support office at Johnson Space Center
and the experiment manager.
In addition to voice communication, the shuttles are equipped with
Teletype and fax machines for the transmission and reception of
printed material and even photo graphs.
"Conceivably, everything they move that way could be moved from
computer to computer,'' Muratore said. "From a space station
standpoint it would be much preferable to transfer the information
electronically without paper in the loop the way we do today on the
shuttle.''
"Paper is going to be a limited resource, something that has to be
thrown away or reused on the space station,'' she said. "It becomes
trash. So the more we can eliminate on the space station the better
off we are.''
The current experiment does not represent the first time that
civilians have had a direct communications link with those in space.
Since January, the Soviet space station Mir has maintained a "mail
drop'' for ham radio operators to use in leaving messages for the
cosmonauts.
"It's very similar'' in function, said Gary Morris, a former member of
the Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club who now lives in San
Diego. "The packet bulletin board system on Mir allows an amateur (ham
radio operator) on the ground to leave mail messages.
"What they're doing with the Mac is different in that they're going
through the whole (electronic mail) network. It's much more
complex.''
Sidebar:
Send mail to Atlantis
Computer users who presently have an electronic mail address of their
own can send electronic mail to the crew of the shuttle Atlantis.
The address to which your comments should be sent is:
[email protected]
If you don't understand how to use this address, ask the administrator
of your online system to explain the proce dure and etiquette for
sending Internet-style mail.
Because of concerns over security, privacy and capacity, NASA has not
revealed the specifics of the Atlantis e-mail experiment, but the
information leaked out on the nation's computer networks. The e-mail
address is being provided unofficially to accommodate the resulting
flurry of inquiries. Using it sends mail to an earthbound network,
not Atlantis itself, so capacity is not a concern.
It is not known whether the astronauts will read their electronic mail
while they are in space, or wait until they return.
Atlantis is commanded by Air Force Col. John Blaha. His crew includes
pilot Mike Baker, a Navy commander; flight engineer David Low;
biochemist Shannon Lucid; and Army Col. James Adamson.
Joe Abernathy
((Moderator's note: We send a message to the listed address and
have not yet received a response))
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