NASA says first space Internet test 'beyond expectations'

NASA scientists say the first tests of what could someday become an outer space Internet have far surpassed their expectations.

"It's been beyond what we expected," said Don Cornwell, the Lunar Laser Communications Mission manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We obviously expected it would work well, but this is even better... Everything going better than we thought it would. We're running these systems error free."

With the tests already going so well, NASA is encouraged that a laser communications system could be the building blocks of an outer space Internet. "This is the beginning of that," Cornwell told Computerworld. "I think we could have that with delay tolerant networking. This is the beginning."