"I Can See A Network For The Solar System By 2040"

Will everyone on the planet one day be connected to the Internet?
I hope so. Although I'm also aware that not everyone would want to use this kind of technology.

Why wouldn't they?
That's like asking why anyone wouldn't want to read a book. Or if you had a TV, and had the option of watching Shakespeare or a stupid sitcom, why would you watch the sitcom. Not everyone offered the facility of technology will take it.

Would denying people access to the Internet have to do with governments' commitment to democracy?
Yes, some governments might want to prevent information from being free. They can stay in power by keeping their populations ignorant of what's going on around them and especially in the West. The Net is a democratising tool. It's also a powerful tool for misinformation. When you begin figuring out that not everything on it is equally valid, it helps you think critically.

What about the loss of privacy? Millions are surfing the Net without realising they're leaving a digital trail that says a lot about their lifestyles, preferences.
Think about American Express for a moment. If you look at your end-of-the-year credit card statement, you'll see they know a great deal about you, how you spend, what restaurants you like etc. You give up a great deal of that information in return for the convenience of using the card. That's the way it'll be on the Net. You'll have to decide what you're willing to give up to get the service you desire.

There's a belief the Net could create disparity: unequal breeds of information haves and have-nots.
I don't know if I can entirely agree with that. I've seen the spread of Internet around the world, even in remote places in Africa. And with the advent of the Internet chip, you may Internet-enable people without them having to buy a lot of software. Recently, the University of Massachusetts demonstrated an entire web server made of just two chips. Prices are coming down and with increasing competition, and some useful government intervention, we may really see inexpensive Net access across the planet.

Could the 'Net revolution' go wrong?
Well, one possibility is that we can't keep up with the demand, though I don't anticipate that problem. Then, the model we've worked out for growth might prove to be wrong. We might also be unable to get international agreements on some critical issues - protection of intellectual property, or assigning jurisdiction to a transaction. For example, gambling on the Net may be legal in Australia, but not in the US. You may be physically located in the US, but the gambling website is in Australia, so whose jurisdiction are you under? I don't know the answer to that, and I don't know anyone who does. There're a lot of potential problems, yet the motivation to solve them is high.

Will the Internet threaten the nation-state as we know it today?
Well, it allows a form of communication that's especially useful in large countries. However, when it carries international traffic, it doesn't know it's carrying traffic across borders, and generally, it doesn't care. So if no one's looking, it could carry a great deal of traffic which countries wouldn't want. Especially, banking transactions. But there is a way to deal with that. If a country requires that a bank having a transaction with country X exceeding $10,000 will have to report it, then I've reason to believe governments can handle it. Also, the Net does allow terrorists from across the world to communicate, but I believe it's very hard to keep such groups or networks a secret, so it's also easier for governments to keep track of what's going on.

You're working with nasa on an Interplanetary Internet. A lot of people may think it's totally unnecessary...
If you think it's unnecessary, you'll also have to tell me that space exploration isn't worth it. Now if you think space exploration is worth it, then you'll have to accept my argument that space exploration will be more efficient if it has a communication system backbone, like every nation has built. I see a lot of immediate spin-off terrestrial benefits coming out of the project, in addition to its contribution to commercialisation of space. This may sound far-fetched, but we can take advantages of physical properties in space, for example, micro-gravity environments for production of materials. I also feel there's enormous scope for space tourism. The possibilities are there, but nothing will happen till we get the cost of payloads down in space.

What sort of time-frame do you have in mind?
I think the first leg of the Interplanetary Network, between Earth and Mars, can be up by 2004. Subsequent satellites will orbit more planets and perhaps the asteroid belt. I can imagine a multiplanetary network in operation as early as 2008. A network covering the entire solar system may not be finalised before 2040. We are working on prototyping hardware and software. We don't have the funds yet, but I'm hoping they'll come through.

Do you read science fiction?
Oh, a lot. I'm a nuts-and-bolts kind of science fiction guy. My favourites are the older Robert Heinlein, also Caltech cosmologist Robert L. Forward. Then there's a writer called Hal Clemente.

Do you share William Gibson's vision of the future, of people plugging into and travelling in 'cyberspace' - a term he invented?
Not in the way he describes it. I don't think you can interface with a computer in a way that changes you cognitively. We know we can do that sensorily. For example, my wife has had a cochlear implant which enables her to hear perfectly. But I do not think we have enough knowledge about how to detect a thought. If you've ever seen a pet scan of a brain, you see a large number of processes going on inside, and to identify a thought there is complicated. I see the ability of the Net to create cognition to be beyond predictive feasibility. I'm not saying it's impossible, but to create the sort of Net that Gibson writes about, an environment that seems so real and on such a scale, would require so much processing power and so much data that I don't think it's feasible in the predictable future. But you know the old adage: if an old distinguished scientist tells you that it can't be done, it possibly can, and if he says it can, it possibly won't.

Do you believe time travel is possible?
I assume you mean travelling back in time, not forward, because that's what we do all the time, at the rate of one second per second. Travelling back in time is technologically possible, but not feasible. We have to find the wormholes, the monopoles, the high-energy gravitational fields. The sun burns about 4 million tonnes of hydrogen per second, we need to produce energies at that level. Trouble is, we've no way yet to do that. But travelling forward in time in the real sense, oh yes, we can do it, no sweat. We've ion engines that can power a rocket to speeds 10 per cent of the speed of light, that's 30,000 km per second. Of course, the effects aren't dramatic till you reach a speed about 40 per cent the speed of light. That can be done sometime in the future. If you reach 90 per cent the speed of light and spend 10 years exploring space, when you come back you'll find 100 years have elapsed on earth. Though I don't know why anyone would want to do that. Wouldn't know anyone around when you come back.