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Antarctic IRC: how NASAs flying lab stays connected

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/antarctic-irc-how-nasas-flying-lab-stays-connected

What Jamie wrote

How awesome to see IRC playing a role in this.

Over that BBS-worthy bandwidth, Operation Ice Bridge pushes and pulls three main types of data. One of them is IRC chat, which allowed for the crew on the DC-8 to coordinate with the ground crew in Punta Areas, Chile, and has also been used during the summer to coordinate with weather forecasters for thunderstorm-chasing over Kansas. During the latest Antarctic mission, IRC was also used to communicate with students in 49 school classrooms in the US and Chile. One IRC server is aboard the aircraft and another at the ground station, reducing the number of connections that need to be handled over the narrow IP network pipe.