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If Microsoft really is trying to kidnap Java, it may well not have the Wits to do it.

 The Web Interface for Telescience (Wits) is being used for a special purpose, one that even Microsoft would have a difficult time hijacking.

 The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft landed on the red planet last Friday and a rover on board the spacecraft was being controlled by Earth-bound scientists using Java.

 For this first mission, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are using Wits to put data downloaded from the rover on the Internet and the public will be able to try simulations.

 The version of Wits that is now available simulates the Pathfinder Sojourner rover by creating a panoramic image from an operation readiness test.

 When the system is put into real use in 2001, 2003 and 2005, the panorama will be replaced by the actual image sent from Mars.

 The Wits technology will then be used to command the rovers directly.

 Some of this technology was demonstrated at the JavaOne conference last April, but it has now progressed much further. Detailed information about the Wits project can be found at http://mars.graham.com/ Wits/index.html.

 Wits is the terrestrial sub-system of the long-range science rover task, managed by the JPL robotics and Mars exploration office and funded by the NASA office of advanced concepts and technology telerobotics programme.

 The JPL is represented by Paul Backes, the speaker at JavaOne, and he is working with another company, IA Tech, represented by Kam Tso.

 The Wits system is said to work on Unix and Windows 95/NT with Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 as well as on the Macintosh with Netscape's Communicator 4.01. The Mac version is being tested now.

 Not only is this an exciting technology to follow, it is yet another example - if one was really needed - of why Java must remain what it is: write once, run anywhere.

 Imagine how terrible it would be if a version of Wits had to be written for each operating system that is at present being used?  The Sojourner rover on board the Pathfinder has a 2MHz chip running the whole show. If that sounds a little underpowered by today's standards, one must remember that battery life is important and there is the small matter of the speed of light.

 It will take 20 minutes for a return trip to Mars at that speed.

 After Pathfinder lands it will be possible to send about a byte a second to Mars and get about five bytes/second from Mars.

 The developers have said that using Java has not only made the project easier to port, but also made it possible for scientists all over the world to participate in various tests and events without having to fly to the US and use one of the terminals at the JPL.

 Mr Backes also said he felt that Java was an inherently safer language to work in than C or C++, the languages they had been using before.

 With Wits about it, Java is now not merely an international development platform, it is interplanetary.



Sojourner data will be made available to the public on the Internet