The US National Aeronautics & Space Administration, NASA, has announced that it has received the first electronic mail message from space. No, not from a little green man with a modem, but from the crew of the Space Shuttle who have been equipped with a portable Macintosh and a connection to AppleLink – Apple Computer Inc’s electronic bulletin board. The messages between the Shuttle Atlantis, mission control and the families had to go through no fewer than six conversions between analogue and digital, so that the effective throughput of only 400bps to 800bps comes as no surprise. And the text of that historic first message? According to an Apple spokeswoman the communication read Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here… Hasta la vista, baby… we’ll be back. Historic maybe, but not exactly memorable.
