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A comment on Why I thought we'd all be living in space by now. Parent comment

Re:Why I thought we'd all be living in space by now by Xichekolas on Saturday January 10, 2009 @08:59PM (#428660)
We could probably telecommute from LEO, but anything further out starts to become annoying if you need anything in real time.

On the other hand, with the lack of distractions, I imagine the Moon would be an incredibly productive locale.

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Re:Why I thought we'd all be living in space by now by gravitycop on Saturday January 10, 2009 @10:15PM (#428727)
We could probably telecommute from LEO, but anything further out starts to become annoying if you need anything in real time.

There is excessive latency with satellite internet, which uses GEO satellites. However, satellite internet requires 4 hops. Telecommuting from GEO only requires 2 hops = half the latency. ~23,000 miles x 2 = 46,000 miles. 46,000 miles / 186,000 miles/second = 247 milliseconds of latency (about a quarter of a second).

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Re:Why I thought we'd all be living in space by now by Xichekolas on Sunday January 11, 2009 @12:15AM (#428824)
247 milliseconds of latency

I guess that is good enough provided your job doesn't involve winning DotA tournaments.

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