alt Hacker NewsMy favorite "lasers at distance" thing will be when amateurs can get a few photons back from the mirrors left on the moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment...
Not quite there yet at the amateur level, private industry soon, but then there is the question of safety to air traffic.
Can you imagine the first moon data link? JWST has 8mbps
Replies
IAmBroom • yesterday at 1:20 PM
And the next will be when the amateur data links manage to noticeably heat the mirrors...
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eesmith • yesterday at 12:59 PM
People do use radio (though not optical) for Earth-Moon-Earth data links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Ear...
Modulating a laser beam for communications is not new but this distance effort by amateurs doing a two-way voice transmission over 167km in New Zeland is pretty cool. This article also mentions a number of other laser communication long distance efforts.
https://www.modulatedlight.org/Modulated_Light_DX/MODULATED_...