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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JET PROPULSION LABORATORY NAMES VINT CERF

A "DISTINGUISHED VISITING SCIENTIST"

Cerf To Work with JPL to Design An Interplanetary Internet Capable of Linking Scientists and Netizens Throughout the Solar System

PASADENA, Calif., August 4, 1998 - Vint Cerf, MCI's senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Engineering, has been named a "Distinguished Visiting Scientist" at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to help develop an interplanetary Internet. This post is in addition to his regular duties at MCI. Today Cerf officially introduced the JPL research community to the concept of extending the Internet's terrestrial boundaries for interplanetary communications as part of a seminar, titled "Beyond the Millennium and Beyond the Earth: The Internet in the Next Century."

"It took 20 years for the Internet to take-off here on Earth," said Cerf. "It's my guess that in the next 20 years, we will want to interact with systems and people visiting the Moon, Mars and possibly other celestial bodies. "

Cerf will work with his JPL counterpart, Adrian Hooke, and a small team of technical experts drawn from the Internet community, other NASA Centers and the private sector, to explore ways to merge the work of the Internet and Space communications communities. Together, this team will develop a new interplanetary Internet architecture that can cope with the long transmission delays and noisy, intermittent data links inherent today in deep space communications. The traditional framework of TCP/IP will have to be radically adapted for interplanetary communications. Other challenges include the construction of interplanetary gateways and perhaps methods to provide for local caching of content - much in the same manner as many World Wide Web sites are mirrored in different geographic areas to optimize performance.

Cerf's work with JPL will address how space missions can be made more openly accessible and exciting to the public, by engaging everyone with Web access in great voyages of interplanetary exploration and discovery via the interplanetary Internet. Together, Cerf and Hooke also hope to enhance scientific research by allowing scientists to use familiar Web-based tools via interplanetary gateways that operate throughout the Solar System.

"The excitement we saw generated when internauts followed the exploits of the Mars Pathfinder is just the sort of thing we'd like to recapture on a regular basis," said Adrian Hooke, manager of the NASA Space Mission Operation and Standardization Program. "What we'd like to do is involve wide segments of the public by letting them become part of the exploration experience -- to actually have a hands-on sense of what it's like to be 'telepresent' on Mars and other places throughout the galaxy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the work we're beginning now might one day allow students to be able to control their own Mars rover in much the same way JPL scientists controlled the movements of Sojourner last summer."

One driving force behind this effort is the possibility that the Deep Space Network (DSN) could serve as an "Interplanetary Internet Service Provider." (The DSN is a worldwide network of ground stations used to communicate with spacecraft and conduct radar and radio astronomy studies.)

The Distinguished Visiting Scientist Program was established to promote interchange between academic researchers worldwide and JPL scientists and engineers. Recognized authorities in their fields are recruited to interact with JPL personnel as consultants or collaborators or to assist the Director or Chief Scientist on matters of policy. The intent of the program, which operates under the direction of the Chief Scientist, is to strengthen and advance areas of research that are of particular interest to JPL through the exchange of ideas, research methods, and technical expertise.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA facility that is managed by the California Institute of Technology. Its mission is to explore space using cutting edge technologies, and to transfer these capabilities to U.S. firms for the benefit of taxpayers and the private sector.

JPL continues to be a world leader in science and technology developed from space exploration, breaking new ground in the application of those technologies, from micro-devices to deep space communications. JPL is broadening its technologies for myriad scientific and commercial uses on Earth, including healthcare, transportation, environmental assessment, computers, robotics and education.

Widely known as the "Father of the Internet," Cerf is co-developer of the TCP/IP protocol, the computer language that gave birth to the Internet and which is commonly used today. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his partner, Robert E. Kahn for founding and developing the Internet. Cerf served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995. He is a fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for the Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He is the recipient of numerous awards and commendations, and in December 1994, People magazine identified Cerf as one of that year's "25 Most Intriguing People." In addition to his work on behalf of MCI and the Internet, Cerf is a technical consultant for "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict."

MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a leading provider of local-to-global communication services to business, government and residential users. The company's fast-growing portfolio of advanced data and IT services accounts for a quarter of MCI's approximately $20 billion in annual revenue. MCI operates one of the world's largest and most advanced digital networks, connecting local markets in the U.S. to hundreds of locations worldwide. MCI has agreed to merge with WorldCom, one of the world's fastest-growing communications companies. The merger, which is expected to be completed in mid-1998, will create MCI WorldCom, a company uniquely positioned in the U.S. local and long distance markets as well as the global data and Internet markets.

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