Bitcoin Mining in Space
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Mining in Space
The building blocks that will serve as the foundation of the Second Renaissance continues to be laid.
Americans have realized that the future rapid expansion of industry and innovation is lying in wait, just behind a wall of energy. That flood of electrons waiting to wash across the world is being dammed up by decades of complacency in grid infrastructure development and expansion. That all sounds bad, but hold on. We have reasons to be excited.
Today, we have Bitcoin mining operating as a relief valve for intermittent electricity and outdated grids. For years, I’ve shared that Bitcoin mining is the key to our future and that the industry will be providing such important support to our country and military that the entire space will be (is) a national defense asset.
So much of the energy within the Bitcoin mining and data center industries is consumed by managing heat dissipation and corrosion. Water making contact with electrical equipment tends to drain blood from faces — and for good reason. But too little water in the air and you risk static discharge. Did I mention that these operations tend to accumulate dust, rapidly? If dust is allowed to collect and then is tripped by a spark, like a static shock or a short-circuit, it explodes in rapid combustion.
At the very same time, having a proper amount of humidity in the air allows for heat to be transferred from electrical equipment throughout the open atmosphere. You don’t want to run hot all damn day — and neither do computers.
What about putting Bitcoin miners into an atmosphere that has much less, well… atmosphere?
Think about it, our atmosphere is heated by our sun. Our seasons are determined by our location in our orbit around said sun. And our weather is determined by the transfer of that heat within these variables. This makes maintenance and operations highly dynamic, with a high-level ebb-and-flow that is reminiscent of a professional athlete’s strength-training program. That’s a lot of variables to deal with in two of the most competitive markets on the planet right now.
So, why not go where no one else has gone before? Why not search for greener pastures? I mean, hell, the American West was developed thanks to men crazy enough to venture out into the wilderness in search of sites that provided dense basins and veins of stored energy. In case you hadn’t heard: Space is the next frontier. From your fingertips to the moon — that is the first leg of the future of exploration. It provides many new challenges.
One of the challenges that must be worked on before all others is power. Bitcoin mining changes the required deployment and development strategy of power plants and energy sourcing on Earth, so why can’t it do the same in space? If a power plant cannot make money through the electrons it is supplying, well, that dog just ain’t gon’ hunt.
Thanks to Bitcoin mining, all power plants now have an opportunity to gain access to immediate revenue that is not damaged by power cycling. All these miners want is reliable power. The easier the maintenance and environmental management, the better.
Intercosmic Energy thinks that low Earth orbit may provide a significant opportunity for Bitcoin mining. With such little atmosphere, there is effectively no weather to be concerned about, so that reduces management requirements. The altitude provides a greater volume of hours of available sunlight. The vacuum of space allows for an oversupply of cooling capacity — which makes maintaining heat the primary thermal concern. This is important because when trying to control an environment, having to focus on a single variable for 99% of the time makes the job much easier to manage and execute on. This also means that maintaining an internal environment makes for easier operational maintenance as well. With a perfectly controlled atmosphere, equipment life can be stretched to limits that are much further right on a timeline than down here on the Earth’s surface.
Orbital Bitcoin miners will provide demand for power in space. This will call for development of these assets and capacities. There will be those brave enough and crazy enough to answer the call. These individuals will pave the way forward for development of shipping and manufacturing infrastructure on the moon. This will act as a port for the entire planet, as well as for venturing out throughout our solar system. All of this becomes more and more possible as we tap our fonts of energy that are just waiting to be consumed.
Nick Moran, CEO of Intercosmic Energy, is answering the future’s call. He’s potently aware of the challenges and risks. He also knows that he cannot accomplish this goal on his own. Intercosmic Energy is looking to build a team that is as passionate as Moran in the Bitcoin mining space.
He shared with me a few of his top priorities and I thought I would put the word out to the Bitcoin community to see if we can help advance this project. Of highest priority are an aerospace engineer and/or orbital mechanics expert, a veteran software engineer with Moran’s added emphasis on “one who’s a wizard with Bitcoin mining tech… someone who knows ASIC’s like the back of their hand,” and a thermal management guru with experience in fluid dynamics (such experience in space would obviously be ideal).
This project is far from impossible: It is simply a matter of bringing together like-minded individuals and work toward the same goal. In our conversation, Moran went on to elaborate:
“NASA and other space agencies have only researched energy transfer methods regarding Space-based Solar Power since 1974, having never even built a working concept by the way.
They have wasted BILLIONS in taxpayer money studying this topic. My novel method leverages data transfer that’s 100% safe and 100% effective vs NASA’s researched method of energy transfer, which is not safe whatsoever and only 11% effective.”
Bitcoin miners are the eliminators of energy waste and the explorers of new, untapped fonts. The lowest-hanging fruits are being reaped now on the Earth’s surface (coal, natural gas, hydro, solar, nuclear and wind). We are now in the building stage for the next leap forward: Bitcoin mining’s space race.
The Second Renaissance flywheel continues to gain momentum.
Mike Hobart is an Army Aviation veteran and a contributor to Bitcoin Magazine. Opinions stated are not necessarily those of BTC Inc.
This post Bitcoin Mining in Space first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mike Hobart.
Bitcoin Magazine
