Interplanetary Internet on board ISS

The International Space Station is now testing a new communications protocol that could form the backbone of a future interplanetary internet (Image: STS-119 Shuttle Crew/NASA)

The Universal Wide Web (UWW) or Interplanetary internet now has its first permanent node in space, aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The new software will make sending data from space less like using the telephone, and more like using the web. In the modern era of the web and information on demand, teams still have to schedule times to send and receive data from space missions.

But the newly installed system aboard the ISS could one day allow data to flow between Earth, spacecraft, and astronauts automatically, creating what is being dubbed the "interplanetary internet".

It sure beats the dial-up and 386-processor based technology that normally manages the ISS comms.