Bitcoins in space

[FatherMcGruder]

Actually, the vaccum sucks for cooling things.

Plenty of solar power though.

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[ribuck]

Ok so bitcoin is Moon compliant.

I would say it the other way: "Moon is bitcoin-compliant"

[grondilu]

I would say it the other way: "Moon is bitcoin-compliant"

Indeed.

[TiagoTiago]

What would happen if a major disaster, natural or otherwise, severs the Terra Internet into two separate nets for a few days?

[ribuck]

What would happen if a major disaster, natural or otherwise, severs the Terra Internet into two separate nets for a few days?

Firstly, most people think a total severance is practically impossible. There would have to be no radio communication link, nor wire or optical fiber link, nor sneakernet or avian carrier link. It's hard to imagine a disaster that would disable every last link.

If the network does get severed for a few days, then later rejoined, one of the block chains will be accepted by the majority and the other block chain will be rejected. The transactions on the rejected block chain are temporarily lost, but will normally be re-broadcast and eventually incorporated into the accepted block chain.

Any coins generated on the rejected block chain during the separation will be lost forever, even if they have been spent to someone else in the meantime.

[FatherMcGruder]

What would happen if a major disaster, natural or otherwise, severs the Terra Internet into two separate nets for a few days?

Firstly, most people think a total severance is practically impossible.

How long did Egyptians loose interweb access for?

[TiagoTiago]

I saw on TV that at one point, the only way they could tweet was to call a phone number and leave a message on an answering machine, the messages were then automaticly posted on Tweeter as audio clips.

[ribuck]

How long did Egyptians loose interweb access for?

Lots of people lost their internet access, as various methods of access went down and up. But landlines kept working, didn't they? At a pinch, major Bitcoin merchants could dialup to an overseas ISP in a crisis if they needed to.

But there's a big difference between losing internet access (even if a whole country loses it), and retaining access within a country but being partitioned from the rest of the world.

[bitcool]

In other star and planetary systems it is really better to create a separate block chain.

bitcoin maybe the least desirable option in another planetary system, here is why:

To create bitcoin or block chain, you need two things: hardware and software.

#1. Assume you didn't bring everything with you, to create hardware (CPU in particular), you'll need to have Silicon, Boron, Phosphorous, Aluminium, Copper, Gold.... not mentioning those multi-billion dollar fabs.
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/514-intel-cpu-processor-core-i7.html
"A microprocessor is the most complex manufactured product on earth. In fact, it takes hundreds of steps and only the most important ones have been visualized in this picture story"

#2. To write and maintain the bitcoin software, you'll need to have a group of programmers and make them happy (providing food,shelter,drugs, sex,games,whatever), which can be more difficult than #1.

gold, silver, or seashells will be much better choice.

[FatherMcGruder]

The pioneering space colonists probably wouldn't have a need for currency at the start. Compensation for work done would come in the form of survival, at least for the first few generations.

[we6jbo]

There's going to be scenarios where connecting to the Internet will be difficult if not impossible. If in fact Bitcoin must be connected to the Bitcoin network to function properly I was thinking as a solution that there could be multiple Bitcoin networks running. The main Bitcoin network that we use, and a Bitcoin network running in an intranet for submarines where Internet is not always available but currency is always needed. Then to link the two networks together the same people who are trading cash for Bitcoins could also trade Bitcoins for Bitcoins on both ends of the Network. I.E., something like this [Main Bitcoin Network (Bitcoin Trader<-)]---[(->Bitcoin Trader) Submarine Bitcoin Network]

I think it would be really interesting if someone setup a Bitcoin experimentation networks to test ideas like the lost in space idea in this topic. That way we can truly see what would happen if a total netsplit were to occur and people were still performing Bitcoin transactions.

[Anonymous]

The test network is a split network from the main bitcoin one .  


I think a bitcoin stock market might be fun where each separate company has a different block chain and to issue shares it sells some of its sharecoins.

[grue]

Space is the ultimate cooling system.....

space = insulator. ever wonder why thermos are called vacuum flasks?

[grondilu]

I'm not an engineer or anything, but I'm pretty sure it easy to cool an electronic device in space.  Sure, you don't have any environnmental fluid to carry heat away, but you have plenty of space that you can fill with zero-weight (considering zero gravity) metallic pans.  Maybe just behing solar panels.   Those metallic surfaces can radiate energy out.

[FatherMcGruder]

Those metallic surfaces can radiate energy out.

But, that's all you can do in space. Conduction and convection are out. And just as a surface can radiate heat, it can also absorb radiation, from the Sun for example. I think that cooling equipment in space presents some interesting engineering challenges.

[grondilu]

Those metallic surfaces can radiate energy out.

But, that's all you can do in space. Conduction and convection are out. And just as a surface can radiate heat, it can also absorb radiation, from the Sun for example.

Oops, I'm afraid you're right.  That was silly of me but I forgot that.

I guess cooling electronic devices is indeed tricky in space.

[FatherMcGruder]

I wonder how the ISS does it. Maybe it has radiators shadowed by the solar panels. I bet it can also make use of a fair amount of convection, since it orbits in the upper atmosphere.

[eMansipater]

I wonder how the ISS does it. Maybe it has radiators shadowed by the solar panels. I bet it can also make use of a fair amount of convection, since it orbits in the upper atmosphere.

You got me curious about this, so I looked it up.  The answer is apparently ammonia-filled infrared radiators:

http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/SpaceOps/ISS/Cooling/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21mar_1/

[TiagoTiago]

Do they got actual internet on the ISS or do they use only specialized communication means (plus regular radio) ?

[gigabytecoin]

A money market on the planet Zlorg wouldn't be able to "communicate" quickly enough with Earth either for that matter.

What with quantum finance erupting as a new business model. It would be pointless to try and communicate a sale of USD between Earth and some planet 50 lightyears away.