Building the Interplanetary Internet

http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/02/22/153252.shtml

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, now a Google VP, is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the ‘InterPlaNet’ protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. A signal traveling between the Earth and Mars can take up to 20 minutes.