A Interplanetary Currency

[Herodes]

I don't think humans will ever establish a long term settlement on mars, but I love the idea that some people try.

Here is a recent talk of Elon Musk about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB3R5Xk2gTY

The reason for it to happen, I would think for scientific reasons, and to test equipment and learn so we could inhabitate other planets later on.

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[giszmo]

You can use bitcoin over there if you don't mind somewhat slower propagation to and from Earth.

Of course you won't mind.

I mean, it would be used for commercial exchanges between mars and earth and goods would take months or years to ship anyway.  So it won't matter if payments take a few hours or even days.

Delay is no issue. Maybe bandwidth is. Not sure how much bandwidth there ever will be if you have people over there but most likely not more than a hand full of connections (radio signal coming from Paris will not be distinguishable from same frequency coming from New York so you could get distance by relaying signals via the moon or some other spots that you occupy to get bandwidth).

With bloom filtering and a convention to use only addresses of a small address space (vanitygen: 1Mars*), Blockchain traffic would be negligible. Sure, earthlings would love these 1Mars* addresses, too just for the coolness but that would rather add anonymity/denyability to our Martian wallets.

[grondilu]

so we could inhabitate other planets later on.

There are no other planets.   And extra-solar is just too far away.

[giszmo]

I don't think humans will ever establish a long term settlement on mars, but I love the idea that some people try.

Here is a recent talk of Elon Musk about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB3R5Xk2gTY

The reason for it to happen, I would think for scientific reasons, and to test equipment and learn so we could inhabitate other planets later on.

1h video?? TLDW anybody?

I guess the fact that we might get extinct by some stupid accident some day might be incentive to put a lot of resources in the establishment of a self-sustaining settlement either in Space or another planet/moon.

so we could inhabitate other planets later on.

There are no other planets.   And extra-solar is just too far away.

There are. They are just generations of light-speed travel away. If we survive these damn next 100 years I would feel quite bullish for earth's life and we could prepare for another 1000 years to bridge these gigantic gaps.

(Anybody knows this theory:
If there is a first man (pick any) and a last man (due to irreversible nature of entropy there will be), a random man (you?) is in the second half of all men with … 50% probability. So with 100.000.000 humans having lived before you and the next 100M being born in the next 100 years, the last human might just be around the corner with 50% certainty. With continued exponential growth the 99% probability for extinction would not be 1000 years.

I love this thought experiment )

[bitstarter]

1h video?? TLDW anybody?

I guess the fact that we might get extinct by some stupid accident some day might be incentive to put a lot of resources in the establishment of a self-sustaining settlement either in Space or another planet/moon.

We should have been dead in 1883 http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425780/billion-ton-comet-may-have-missed-earth-by-a-few-hundred-kilometers-in-1883/

[marcus_of_augustus]

so we could inhabitate other planets later on.

There are no other planets.   And extra-solar is just too far away.

... with the currently known physics.

[grondilu]

the fact that we might get extinct by some stupid accident some day might be incentive to put a lot of resources in the establishment of a self-sustaining settlement either in Space or another planet/moon.

Does it, really?

From a philosophical point of view, it's not obvious that we should make lots of efforts into preventing our extinction.  After all, if such an extinction happens, it will only concern future generations.  I'm not sure I understand why preceding generations should bother.

(Anybody knows this theory:
If there is a first man (pick any) and a last man (due to irreversible nature of entropy there will be), a random man (you?) is in the second half of all men with … 50% probability. So with 100.000.000 humans having lived before you and the next 100M being born in the next 100 years, the last human might just be around the corner with 50% certainty. With continued exponential growth the 99% probability for extinction would not be 1000 years.

Assuming perpetual exponential growth of human population is silly.  In several developed countries people don't even renew generations.  It seems that the more advanced civilizations are, the less children they make.

[hazek]

I don't think humans will ever establish a long term settlement on mars, but I love the idea that some people try.

Depends on whether or not there's something there besides dirt that we could use and we can't find cheaper anywhere else.

[grondilu]

(Anybody knows this theory:

Assuming perpetual exponential growth of human population is silly.  In several developed countries people don't even renew generations.  It seems that the more advanced civilizations are, the less children they make.

Talking to yourself?

Wrong editing of my post.

[Rassah]

I think the most likely outcome will be mars having its own Bitcoin fork, with a floating exchange between earth and mars. If Mars ever starts needing a currency, they will need something they can use locally.
As for why mars would ever get colonized? Mining for resources on mars is one possibility, but a bigger one may be that mars has a much lower gravity than earth, and thus would make a much cheaper (from a re-launching point of view) stop for refueling and restocking of resources for space miners (those mining stuff from the asteroid belt and such). Sounds far fetched, but Virgin and other companies are seriously looking into mining in space already.

[grondilu]

Sounds far fetched, but Virgin and other companies are seriously looking into mining in space already.

Indeed they are looking into it,  but honestly I don't understand why.  If you really want to mine stuff, I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to mine sea floor than asteroids.

[Rassah]

Sounds far fetched, but Virgin and other companies are seriously looking into mining in space already.

Indeed they are looking into it,  but honestly I don't understand why.  If you really want to mine stuff, I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to mine sea floors than asteroids.

It costs way less to mine for water and materials in space, and transport those materials through zero gravity to the space station, than it does to mine for them on earth and launch them from here. The plan is to provide water and resources for the ISS to start with, and then space hotels and other space tourism venues once they become available.
So, it's mostly the gravity thing

Mars would end up playing a part for things we may need to process first, and a processing factory in space is too costly to build (building airtight caves on mars is cheaper than building large airtight can in space) or for things that we do need on earth that may be hard to get here (gold, plutonium, platinum, rare earth metals, etc.)

[TheBible]

It's said that bitcoin people think outside the box, now, imagine in the future, do you think that there will be possible to move anything (including radio signals) faster than the speed of light?

Alcubierre’s idea: bending space-time in front of and behind a vessel rather than attempting to propel the vessel itself at light-speeds.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/#ixzz2D5DLGgFT


So, the universe is wast, perhaps there's already other civilizations that have created interplanetary communication technologies, perhaps we one day will get in touch with them, and start using their technology ?

Also, one day, our sun will stop shining, and by that time, if mankind is not extinkt, we would need to find somewhere else to live, and it would be logical to think that we would need to inhabitate more than one planet on our quest to inhabitate the universe. :p

Also, it's not unthinkable that in say a couple of hundred years from now, maybe before that we have bases with people living on mars, the moon and so on. In the future, there will probably be astronauts that will be willing to dedicate their entire life for space exploration, it is also possible to imagine that a giant self sustainable space station would travel through space, while hosting a complete and sustainable eco-system for hundreds or thousands of years until it finds an inhabitable planet.


Use your imagination people!

You should probably focus on being able to spend bitcoins on Earth before setting your sights on space aliens.  Also, I bet they'd already have a currency that doesn't take 30 minutes to complete transactions with and is probably accepted by most of their society.

[Rassah]

BTW, the SA retard above thinks that
"perhaps there's already other civilizations that have created interplanetary communication technologies, perhaps we one day will get in touch with them, and start using their technology"
is the same thing as
"They're discussing the possibilities of trading bitcoin with alien species to buy their technology."
Holy crap you are stretching   Besides, the right thing to say would've been "It's much more likely that advanced alien tech would have ways of breaking SHA-256, making bitcoins useless, rather than provide improved communication tech." As I said, no imagination whatsoever.

[Rassah]

Rassah, if you are somehow reading this, pray tell how do you put an exchange between Earth and Mars? You have two planets in an elliptical orbit, unless you want to put the exchange on the sun.

First of all, you can take a private key with you wherever you go; it doesn't need to be plugged into the network to store value. The network is only needed to verify that it still has coins (that's why brain wallets are possible). And second, it doesn't matter how long it takes to transmit a signed transaction. As long as my Earth-Bitcoin transaction is transferred from earth to mars, and gets accepted by Earth miners, it will work. Latency is only a problem for transmitting mined blocks, not transactions. It will take a very long time to verify, of course (15min to transmit to earth, 10 to put in a block, 15 more to send confirmation back to mars).  As for the rest, it'll work same as currency exchanges between countries here on earth, where one exchange is in one country (planet), and the other in another country (planet). Nothing has to be between. People flying from New York to London don't land in Iceland to exchange GPB for USD.
Yes, once in a while, when the planets are on opposite sides, the sun will be a problem. Maybe by then we'll have relay satellites. Or maybe we'll all be dead before any of this happens, anyway.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Sounds far fetched, but Virgin and other companies are seriously looking into mining in space already.

Indeed they are looking into it,  but honestly I don't understand why.  If you really want to mine stuff, I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to mine sea floor than asteroids.

There are indications that some of the deposits of the minerals on the asteroids are pure (due to their particular pressure/temperature/gravity histories) ... i.e. zero refining costs ... basically you just have to go up there, pick it up and bring it back.

[Rassah]

SA troll posted

how the f would you keep the drat thing always pointing in the direction of Mars?

The same way NASA is able to keep a constant link with the Mars rover. You guys do know we have rovers on, and satellites around Mars, right? If we ("we" the human race, not "we" the bitcoiners, you idiots) do eventually get a colony established on mars, do you honestly think they won't have any communication channels with earth? Chances are there will also be a heliosynchronous satellite in orbit at a 90° offset to our planet, so that we will always have a way to send signals to whatever destination may be on the other side of the sun at the time. (I'm expecting you can figure out what heliosynchronous orbit at 90 degree offset means)

P. S. Please keep the "I don't understand any of this basic financial, technological, and astronomical stuff... you must be the idiot, herp-derp-lol" stuff coming. It's rather amusing.

[Herodes]

Earth will stay inhabitable for about five hundred million years.  That's a lot.  IMHO, humanity as we know it will almost certainly NOT exist in ten thousand years.  Or if it still exists, it won't matter much because it won't be the most intelligent life form anymore.   Humans will be over-powered by machines, who might just keep them as pets or something.  And for a machine, the concept of being "inhabitable" is much different than for a human.

So what you're saying is that robots will come self aware and develop a survival instinct?

I would be interested in your musings about how this would come to be.

[Rassah]

Rassah, if you are somehow reading this, pray tell how do you put an exchange between Earth and Mars? You have two planets in an elliptical orbit, unless you want to put the exchange on the sun.

The same way NASA is able to keep a constant link with the Mars rover.

That is very different from putting "a floating exchange between earth and mars," you  moron.

A "floating exchange" means an exchange between two currencies that is based on open market trading, not on one currency being pegged to the other. Just like the current BTC to USD market is a floating exchange. It doesn't mean there will be an exchange floating somewhere in space. But, of course, you didn't know that term because I'm a moron.

Zero gravity means maximally efficient use of three dimensional space for GPU/ASIC/SpaceASIC installation. Also, space is cold! Your cooling problems are solved.

Aww, that's cute. I bet you also think lasers make pew-pew sounds when they are fired in space. Sorry, but from a thermodynamics point, space is actually very hot, and vacuum makes a great insulator. In fact, if you found yourself out in space, and were somehow able to survive without dying from decompression or suffocation, you would actually find space comfortably warm. After a while you will even find it very uncomfortably hot. A mining rig in space would have the same issue, getting way too hot and not having any good way of cooling itself off.

[01BTC10]

Earth will stay inhabitable for about five hundred million years.  That's a lot.  IMHO, humanity as we know it will almost certainly NOT exist in ten thousand years.  Or if it still exists, it won't matter much because it won't be the most intelligent life form anymore.   Humans will be over-powered by machines, who might just keep them as pets or something.  And for a machine, the concept of being "inhabitable" is much different than for a human.

So what you're saying is that robots will come self aware and develop a survival instinct?

I would be interested in your musings about how this would come to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrot

Maybe someday hybrot will use human neuron to build their progeniture.