Hacker News Reader

Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

According to its Wikipedia entry, McMurdo Station had a 20Mbit/s satellite link so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Communications

I had a buddy [1] that worked in the kitchen at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for a few seasons in 2012-2014. From what he told me: The internet works at certain times of the day at different bandwidths depending on the satellite. I think at that time there was 3 in orbit, and one of them was a retired Navy sat that had like dial-up speed.

Also everything that goes to the station stays there so the vinyl collection is amazing, and they have a huge Betamax / VHS library and most importantly they have /The Thing/ on Betamax.

[1] https://www.portlandmercury.com/Theater/2012/07/26/6564600/m...

Edit: Here's the satellite schedule for this week, https://www.usap.gov/technology/documents/SPSAT%2020220915.p... and you can sign up for a listserv of updates here: https://www.usap.gov/technology/1935/

These are the available birds in orbit for Antarctica:

Broadband: South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR) Satellite

Broadband: Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)

Broadband: Skynet Satellite Communications System

Narrowband: Iridium Multi-Channel System (IMCS)

> Also everything that goes to the station stays there

What's the reasoning behind that? Presumably people bring back clothes and other personal affects right?

Personal effects must be like 1% (approximately) of what they ship in, by weight. Consider things like the consumables and construction equipment.

Given the cost of getting things there, it's probably polite to leave things like movies that you could easily replace back home, so others have them to watch.

Most things are probably cheaper to replace than to bring back from the most remote area on Earth, and far cheaper to leave for someone else to use than make them bring their own. If unwanted, it’s trash - too expensive to move when there’s presumably an acceptable landfill right there (may sound environmentally unfriendly, but hauling trash back is likely worse).

If I remember right they're actually required to ship all trash back. There are no trash landfills in Antarctica.

Oh, my. Watching "The Thing" in an Antarctic station would be insomnia fodder.

I wonder exactly how many copies/versions/editions of The Thing they have.

Shemya Air Force Base (now Eareckson Air Station) in the Aleutian Islands had a policy that weight limits were waived for entertainment media. So you weren't going to be charged any penalties for bringing in movies, comics, CDs, or books because they increased the quality of life of such an isolated base (you were expected to share).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eareckson_Air_Station

I'd imagine the latency and per-installation cost is quite high.

It looks like it operates at 35,000 km and relays the signal between the base and Australia. The ping time seems to average a hair under 250ms.

https://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/170HourList...

http://bhs.smokeping.ovh.net/smokeping?target=APAC.AS7474-1

Starlink satellites are mostly in the 550km elevation range. Average pings seem to be in the 50ms range, but this would be single satellite performance. This should drop as more units are brought online and increase capacity. Also, the laser interconnects are theoretically faster than terrestrial fiber, so there are expected to be many long-hauls where starlink will be the fastest option.

https://www.speedcheck.org/starlink-performance-2021/

> It looks like it operates at 35,000 km and relays the signal between the base and Australia. The ping time seems to average a hair under 250ms.

That would be impressive, as that would be 140,000km in 250ms, or about twice the speed of light

Most satellite IP I use starts at about 650ms

Yeah that number seemed low, should have done the math. Going by the IPs, the link I posted is the delay between Quebec and the New South Wales ground station that the satellite links to. So it sounds like McMurdo to Quebec would be a 1 second delay on a good day.

Pings would be bad compared to fiber/cable from your location to somewhere close to you. Pings are potentially better than fiber/cable would be to locations far away from you, depending on the routing. Going up to LEO and then lasering around gets you faster signal propagation out of the atmosphere.

The Thing now has Internet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com