3 ms·

Was there authentication right from the beginning or was it patched in later?

• Kon-Peki 2y ago
  The space communication network was ~15 years old by the time of the Apollo program and under constant expansion to meet needs. For the moon landing, it was a few dozen ground stations all over the world and 2 million miles of cable linking them together. "from the beginning" doesn't really mean much of anything, and the system would need to be pretty sophisticated just to work, even if 100% of the users were operating in good faith 100% of the time.
  • gertop 2y ago
    "from the beginning" means exactly that; did Voyager launch with authentication support or was the authentication added later on?
    • Kon-Peki 2y ago
      Oh man, I thought this was in reference to Apollo, not Voyager! I'd say that it almost certain that by the time Voyager was launched, there would have been robust authentication just out of necessity. By that time they'd have decades of experience dealing with software bugs, to say nothing of bad actors.