Space

My Space Advocacy friend and artist Niek Verschoor is part of a team building a unique piece of art called Moon Gallery. Moon Gallery is an international collaborative artwork and a gallery of ideas worth sending to the Moon. Moon Gallery intends to launch 100 artefacts to the Moon within the compact format of a 10 x 10 x 1 cm plate (there are 100 cells of 1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm)

on a lunar lander exterior panelling as early as 2022. In this Petri dish-like gallery, Moon Gallery is developing culture for future interplanetary society.

Niek's addition to the Moon Gallery is called (Last) Bullet, fitting just inside the required 1 cm3.

(Last) Bullet is a monument.

(Last) Bullet is a small yet essential monument, founded in commemoration of all the known and unknown victims of violence all over our globe.

In placing this last fired bullet on the face of the moon as a token of faith and hope, we, inhabitants of our planet, strongly emphasize the intention not to export our acts of violence to other planets.

Unfortunately the human kind cannot be trusted blindly, so the (Last) Bullet is accompanied by the Artist’s Watchful Eye to keep checking the fragile balance between good and evil.

The (Last) Bullet is a 7,62 mm Mil-Spec bullet. The jacket is torn, the core is removed and replaced by the Artist’s Watchful Eye. Engraved at the end cap is the text: Last Bullet.

Niek's personal accompanying message reads:

In placing this last fired bullet on the face of the moon as a token of faith and hope, we, inhabitants of this planet, strongly emphasise the intention not to export our acts of violence to other planets or into the universe.

The time has come that we, people living on our wee blue dot in space, should have the courage to send the last bullet up to the moon as a horrifying monument, an awkward remembrance of to never ever shoot at each other again.

In a way this really sounds like a solid and hopeful blueprint for the future.

But I have some doubts.

Therefor, and despite of all honest intensions of my fellow creatures, the (Last) Bullet is accompanied by a guardian, a supervisor to monitor the process. It is the Artist’s Watchful Eye deep inside the bullet, a Watchful Eye to keep checking the fragile balance between good and evil.

If this idea doesn’t work, our journey into space could turn out to be a bloody warfare of all against all, as Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1642. It could turn out to become an awakening Leviathan or a runaway train that cannot be stopped.

So, my friends space invaders, let’s watch our moves and take care of the future we are facing. Try to achieve the highest goal possible and ask for the best you could ever hope for.

Today is the time to finally shoot the moon.

With the increasing surveillance of networks by nation states, and large tech companies keeping track of every move on the internet, a niche market emerges for subscriptionless censorship resistant global communication. Bitlinq's ultimate aim is to launch a small cubesat sized satellite with a payload containing a Lightning Node, as a gatekeeper for a user programmable store-forward tranceiver. The Lightning Node in Space enables the service to become subscriptionless without losing a business model. Secondly, users on the ground can build their own user terminal from non-SatCom specific or proprietary components, which employs an unlicensed portion of the Electromagnetic spectrum for communication to and from Space.

Users within certain geofenced areas, enabled by anonymous donors to the Lightning Node in Space, can use the system free of charge. An additional service being contemplated for further implementation on board the bitlinq payload, is a space based node for Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) based on Decentralized IDentifiers (DID).

Working towards the ultimate aim of a dedicated satellite, the Bitlinq roadmap first uses existing services such as the Blockstream Satellite API for globally broadcasting user data, and the Lacuna Space Lorawan Space gateway on board the M6P satellite in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This combination of Lacuna Space and Blockstream Satellite is now working autonomously for anyone that has a Lacuna Space IOT terminal and Blockstream Satellite equipment.

All arrangements are made by the Bitlinq ground server. This server connects to the dish receiver for Bitcoin block updates to keep both the Bitcoin node and the Bitlinq Lightning Network (LN) node up-and-running. The Bitlinq Message Handler now automatically processes incoming messages from terrestrial LoRaWAN gateways and the Lacuna Space LS1 gateway payload on-board the M6P LEO satellite, and executes tailored scripts and pushes this to the Blockstream Satellite API for global broadcasting.

Work to be done in the next phase is further refinement of the scripts and boarding of customers that would like to make use of the Bitlinq services.

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fervi - commented 2020-09-18T07:44:12.5630000

I wonder - is there any predicted time frame when BitLinq will be sent into space?

20

Spacerik - replied to @fervi 2020-09-18T09:03:55.2770000

Dear Fervi, thanks for your question.

Technically, the Bitlinq satellite could be built and launched within 1.5 years. The total cost estimate is about €2M. A technical issue still needs to be proven in hardware though, that the uplink budget between user terminal and satellite can be closed sufficiently. Talking to colleagues at ESA, this seems to be OK but better to test it of course. A key feature of the future Bitlinq service is that users could build their own user terminal without the need to use specific (branded) components (and without even Bitlinq knowing that this user is using the service (apart from seeing the funds on the LN node grow in the satellite)).

But there is a number of obstacles. First of all, can a Business case be proven beforehand? If not, no investors will be putting up the cost. And it is hard to prove it as most sovereign identity- and privacy aware individuals, the target customers, are not easily reached and would really come forward whether (or not) Bitlinq would solve a real problem for them. I am sometimes afraid Bitlinq is more of a nerd gimmick as I am lacking real data on the prospective market.

If there would be investors, there are still obstacles left. First of all, the launch license for the satellite. A state needs to step forward and provide the license to Bitlinq. My state, the Netherlands, will likely point at the fact that there is a KYC/AML problem, as the service will intentionally provide full privacy to the users. This will at best significantly delay the project. Secondly, also the state launching the rocket, will need to provide the license. If the launching state has an issue with Bitlinq's KYC/AML feature,then the satellite also stays on the ground.

If the Bitlinq satellite will not work out. I am envisaging a 2nd best option, and that is to expand/diversify the downlink capability by adding more Blockstream Satellite-like services. I mean, there are 100s of Geostationairy satellites that all need their bandwidths filled. At the same time adding uplink capability by not only using Lacuna Space, but also other LEO IOT providers that have open access systems on-board. Then by placing Bitlinq groundstations at more places on Earth should also make the service more resilient.

Space

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