The first-ever commercial deep-space transmission may include 138,000 classified ads from craigslist.com, which seems to be redefining "community."Attention earthlings: your housing and job market competition now extends beyond the stratosphere.
In February, Craigs list.org CEO Jim Buckmaster won a $1,225 eBay auction for the first private communication into space from Deep Space Communications Network (DSCN).
Since then, the Craigslist faithful have been given the option to broadcast their classifieds into space, for free.
"It seemed like a cost-effective way to be the first to send Internet postings into space," says Buckmaster.
Craigslist.org, created in 1995 by San Francisco programmer Craig Newmark, is a classifieds Web site in 100 cities in 20 countries that receives 4 million new ads every month.
A test transmission of postings was sent into space on March 11. The analog signal will travel as far as three light years. According to DSCN Managing Director Jim Lewis, there is always a chance that extraterrestrials will receive the transmission, "assuming they have the same receiving equipment we have on Earth."
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