Today, Saturday, July 20, 50 years since the arrival of man on the moon. In the Apollo 11 mission that managed to land on our satellite, a computer the size of a briefcase was used, very primitive and with a very limited processing capacity compared to current mobile phones that we can carry in a pocket. But that was enough for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to reach the moon and return to earth.
For that mission, a great amount of technology and a great innovative impulse were needed, just like the one that is now being put in order to reach the Red planet. Mars is the next frontier to conquer. Missions are already being prepared and the technology tested to get to Mars first and start creating a permanent colony. You know that some probes and exploration robots have arrived, but not the human being yet ...
And what does this have to do with Linux and free software? You are surely wondering that. Well, the mission to Mars and other current space missions are being built on the foundations of open source and Linux. Debian is the system of the International Space Station, but now the expert Yan Fisher ensures that humanity could reach the last corner to explore carrying space missions completely based on open source technology.
To do this, according to Fisher, you have to change something beyond the software, changing the way computers are designed, the hardware. That is a technological effort like the one made for Apollo 11, but it will be a big step for humanity. Must be also free and open, modular and self-taught. In other words, building modern computers with free hardware and going back a bit to how primitive computers were documented in manuals, giving all kinds of details, as is the case with the Commodore 64 and other microcomputers from the 80s.
The great feat of the arrival of man on the moon, and the future of space exploration, is undoubtedly linked to free software.