Spaced Out On Google, Cerf

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 25 of October , 2007 at 8:53 am

(Source) Vint Cerf, an Internet visionary, has predicted that we’ll have developed an interplanetary web that will allow spacecrafts, satellites and planets to transmit information back and forth to each other, as well as back to earth. With Cerf having been hired by Google some two years ago, it’s been largely understood that the search engine to power all of the organization of this data being exchanged will be coming from Google.

The problem with this is we haven’t even begun to colonize space yet. The statement I found the most extraordinary is this one:

As Cerf spoke fondly of Google, he mentioned that he thinks the company will become the interplanetary backbone over the next 20, 30 or 40 years.

OK. It’s going to take that long, with current funding models in place, to build a space station, let alone colonize another planet. Unless there is some proof that other sentient beings live on these planets and that they’d be interested in our “interplanetary” technology, this is still in the realm of science fiction. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it’s a little far fetched to say that Google can achieve this within 40 years. Just look how long it took to make the Internet go mainstream - about 40 years.

That said, I can see some practical application here within the next 40 years. If Google continues funding private space exploration and encouraging future developments in this area, it will eventually be a corporate sponsor of private enterprise-led space exploration. Then it could experiment with satellite Internet feeds from space back to earth. If space explorers can communicate with anyone and everyone on earth via satellite from anywhere in space then imagine how much more quickly we could achieve the dream that Cerf is promoting. If two heads are better than one then how about several billion? All it would take at that point then is to have a space station manned with half a dozen explorers, one of whom is a Web developer who builds a website and a blog to keep space exploration enthusiasts back home informed of their lifestyles while away from home.

Could that happen within 40 years? Yes, it’s possible. But what would search engine optimization look like then?

Category: Search Engines

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