<P> This network technology is supposed to ultimately enable missions that involve multiple spacecraft where reliable inter-vessel communication might take precedence over vessel - to - earth downlinks . According to a February 2011 statement by Google's Vint Cerf, the so - called "Bundle protocols" have been uploaded to NASA's EPOXI mission spacecraft (which is in orbit around the Sun) and communication with Earth has been tested at a distance of approximately 80 light seconds . </P> <P> As a globally distributed network of voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks, the Internet operates without a central governing body . It has no centralized governance for either technology or policies, and each constituent network chooses what technologies and protocols it will deploy from the voluntary technical standards that are developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). However, throughout its entire history, the Internet system has had an "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) for the allocation and assignment of various technical identifiers needed for the operation of the Internet . The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) provides oversight and coordination for two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System . </P> <P> The IANA function was originally performed by USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI), and it delegated portions of this responsibility with respect to numeric network and autonomous system identifiers to the Network Information Center (NIC) at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) in Menlo Park, California . ISI's Jonathan Postel managed the IANA, served as RFC Editor and performed other key roles until his premature death in 1998 . </P> <P> As the early ARPANET grew, hosts were referred to by names, and a HOSTS. TXT file would be distributed from SRI International to each host on the network . As the network grew, this became cumbersome . A technical solution came in the form of the Domain Name System, created by ISI's Paul Mockapetris in 1983 . The Defense Data Network--Network Information Center (DDN - NIC) at SRI handled all registration services, including the top - level domains (TLDs) of . mil, . gov, . edu, . org, . net, . com and . us, root nameserver administration and Internet number assignments under a United States Department of Defense contract . In 1991, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded the administration and maintenance of DDN - NIC (managed by SRI up until this point) to Government Systems, Inc., who subcontracted it to the small private - sector Network Solutions, Inc . </P>

Who was the rfc editor until 1998 just provide the family name