FTP, HTTP and other protocols won’t work over interplanetary distances because they’ll timeout before you get a response, and time on the Deep Space Network of stations for sending and receiving data is scarce. However, the Internet Society is serious about building an interplanetary internet to support unmanned and future human exploration, starting with Mars and extending to other parts of the Solar System. They appear to be dead serious about the work, and Vint Cerf is part of the team working on it.
An Internet Society working paper describes the problems with existing protocols and asks if TCP/IP is the appropriate backbone protocol. TCP/IP may, however be useful in a partialy autonomous “Martian Intranet,” allowing spacecraft and payloads to interact and coordinate with each other.
Imagine sending a SOAP message to a rover or flyer to update its ‘orders’. That’s kinda cool.
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