Bitcoin Forum

Okay so me and a friend of mine have been discussing this idea and were not sure how helpful it would be may be other knowledgeable bit coiners could help on this subject?

So we were thinking about sending a satellite into space... DEEP space. We are well aware that their is a time delay since the speed of light is constant.
We're not sure if its possible to keep a constant connection with the satellite in the event that a WW3 happens or some catastrophic event that every major ISP in the world shut down for what ever reason and we're force to rely on the deep space satellite for a synchronized block chain.

So our question to you bitcointalk, Do you think it is economically feasible for everyone to have satellites ready to be auto-calibrated for deep space satellite for the most updated block chain in the event of a all the ISP's going out and the Internet getting cut out?

Just shield it in lead, it would be a lot cheaper.

Can you elaborate?

Edit: So your basically just suggesting that someone builds a shielded box and sets it underground?(I'm assuming the underground part) thats is always connected to the internet?

Umm... it would be a lot easier running cables underground than into space. Satellites are typically designed to broadcast to a wide area, not as a node. I don't get the point of using a satellite for bitcoin. Are you also planning a global satellite communications system to support the satellite?

yes there will be a link to the satellite that will be maintained in every country, but any consumer should be able to purchase a satellite of their on in this theory.

I think my partners argument is securing the bitcoinnetwork and that it could be a last resort if every block chain some how got corrupted in the event of a catastrophic event such as bombings of WW3?
My argument is that it could be used for other things like sending bitcoins from anywhere in the world with out internet connections.

The point of it being in deep space is that nobody should be able to just missle launch it if in the event that it was a last resort of the block chain.

Satellites are great for broadcasting a one-way stream of data to millions of users such as tv or radio. They can be used for two-way communication, but it's not efficient. I suppose you could use a satellite as a bitcoin service like satellite phones, but they cost several dollars per minute to access for just voice. If you need access to bitcoin in the Himalayan mountains, that may work, but so would shortwave radio.

Should there be a Bitcoin satellite in flying through space?  HELL YES!   ;D

In theory. In practise, there are countries which restricts the purchase and ownership of satellite communications equipment.



The use cases are too corner for it to be worthwhile I feel. If somebody doesn't have internet access, then they are going to have problems using Bitcoin locally in the first place nevermind with the rest of the world.

If WW3 happens, I think we'd have more things to worry about than retrieving the bitcoin blockchain. :D
Having enough Bitcoin users all over the world should in any case provide enough duplicate copies.



Anybody who has the resources to launch a missile to accurately take out a satellite in low orbit would not have much problems doing that to a satellite in deeper space as long as they know where it is. And you can't hide the Bitcoin satellite if you need to be receiving/sending blockchains :D

Also you'll have to consider that the block chain is supposed to grow a LOT in size if Bitcoin is really being adopted widely. This would mean that you'll need a very fast uplink + downlink just to transmit a single block before the next one has been found.

Currently it might work, but it's in no way futureproof.

If you want to have catastophic scenarios, rather look into shortwave radio.

tonal numbers ... deep space ... bitcoin buys some good shit!

this... I want one of these, but there isn't anyone running a data repeater tower in range of me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeOYnYI1T0w

i think there is still less than a TB of data storage in orbit around the earth.

No, this is a stupid idea.

If it got to the point where the only usable copy of the blockchain was stored in a deep space satellite, it would be worthless anyway.

You have no idea how much your answers have helped :D thank you all ;)

Actually that satellite thingie is not that hard or mega expensive. Check out cubesats. Little solar panels two android phones(or sth similar, android phones just an example for cheap and ready to go) poack it full with sd storage and with some kind of transmission down to earth, voila: almost indestructible bitcoin node ;=)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat)



EDIT:

Oh well, starting from 100k$ with shooting into space.... not that cheap, but compared to huge satellites a bargain.

how far do you plan to launch that your blockchain? As TCP packets will have to travel like ~10 minutes to reach the Mars orbit, the confirmation rates would suffer ...

Wait isn't that why Satoshi made it 10 minutes in the first place? I always suspected him to be a Martian!

Well, given alien influence is more plausible than Darwinian evolution as being responsible for humans, who knows.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat     Visionaries?

LOL LOL LOL, coined to.... harhar

Yeah and the launch costs are just the beginning.

An android phone would last about 5 minutes in space. You have to use "space hardened" composites for your CPU, RAM etc, normal silicon chips simply don't operate in the radiation of space. NASA recently upgraded to space hardened 486 chips, so they may have some old space hardened 386 stock laying around somewhere you could buy for a few hundred grand?

Then there's the issue of communication. Cubesats dont have antenna dishes or long range comms capability, so they have extremely limited communication with earth. Generally radio is used, and the satellite is in communications range for a few minutes per day as it passes over a particular spot on the earth. Communication is strictly one-way and limited a to a burst of a few hundred kilobytes at best.

I suppose you could place the Cubesat in a geostationary orbit, meaning it would more or less stay in communications range at all times, but only from one particular place on the earth, which makes it all a little pointless, and I'm not sure how far out it would have to be from the earth to be geostationary, and if you could effectively communicate when the sat was that far out...

TL;DR - There's a few interesting applications you could use a cubesat for, but I don't think hosting a Bitcoin wallet is among them.

Aren't Magneto-Optic-Discs the most reliable way of digital storage?

I heard that they were emp save. I was just thinking... minidiscs are cheap and the last generation of recorders can store files.