(FORTUNE Magazine) – Practically the entire earth is wired: the Arctic, the Amazon, the George Washington Bridge. So Vint Cerf is creating protocols to extend the Net to outer space. "It sounds a bit crazy, sending e-mail to other planets," he admits. "But we never expected the Net to grow as fast as it did. This is just the next logical step." Cerf ought to know: In 1973 the "father of the Internet" co-authored the TCP/IP protocols that created cyberspace as we know it. Today he's senior vice president of Internet architecture and technology at WorldCom, but still has enough geek street cred to have been special technical advisor on Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict two years ago. If Cerf's lucky, space Net might even be controlling Mars probes by 2008; lab tests are already under way, with a satellite test planned for the end of 2000.

--C.T.