Calling the Moon: Startup to Put Cellphone Tower on the Moon

[Judi Lynn]

By Tereza Pultarova, Space.com Contributor | August 10, 2017 03:25pm ET

An astronaut wandering the moon next year could use a smartphone to call home. A German startup is preparing to set up the first telecommunication infrastructure on the lunar surface.

The German company Part Time Scientists, which originally competed for the Google Lunar X Prize race to the moon, plans to send a lander with a rover in late 2018 to visit the landing site of Apollo 17. (Launched in 1972, this was NASA's final Apollo mission to the moon.) Instead of using a complex dedicated telecommunication system to relay data from the rover to the Earth, the company will rely on LTE technology — the same system used on Earth for mobile phone communications.

"We are cooperating with Vodafone in order to provide LTE base stations on the moon," Karsten Becker, who heads embedded electronics development and integration for the startup, told Space.com.

"What we are aiming to do is to provide commercial service to bring goods to the moon and also to provide services on the surface of the moon," Becker added.

More:
https://www.space.com/37753-calling-the-moon-cell-phone-tower.html?utm_source=notification

[Lint Head]

1. Damn. There has to be better technology than a tower that

will evolve in the future. Cell phone towers in our area are destroying the landscapes.
Now. Now one the moon?

[ret5hd]

5. Just thank Gob they aren't going to bomb the moon!!!

You ain't seen a shitstorm on DU till you've seen a moon bombing shitstorm!!!

A small snippet:

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Ridiculous pie-in-the-sky that will never happen.

Industrial civilization is a dead man walking. It won't last long enough to colonize the moon.

[Duppers]

4. +1000

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Excellent article in the current NatGeo on the Lunar X Prize. Exciting stuff!