SpacePoW - Mining Bitcoin in Space

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Liftoff!

The first SpaceX shuttle directed straight to Mars is off! But it is not just this spectacular endeavour that is bringing extreme excitement to the crowds watching it stream live on YouTube. The excitement is also due to the fabulous piece of equipment the mission is bringing up on orbit before heading straight out to the red planet: three hundred thousand cores of the AstroAnt R99, a new specifically designed BitSource bitcoin mining Astrofarm coupled with 7 billion square mile solar plates that will power up the miners - and the generations to come.

Two things are of utmost importance when you think about putting up a system in space that will harvest the power of the Sun and put it directly to work into bitcoin mining machines.

Cost to put all of it in orbit
Cost to update mining hardware periodically

First is being solved right now by SpaceX and Blue Origin. The price to build a rocket and put it in orbit if this rocket is destroyed during launch phases turns almost anything related impossible. SpaceX and Blue Origin have now prototypes that allow for multiple launches and landings.

Second is also related to the first being more like the extra amount of income needed to make the system sustainable.

After that, comes the price for building the panels. Regular panels are surely not appropriate to be put in orbit. Surely they show the way.

Japan has a very advanced project on collecting energy from the Sun and beaming it back to Earth. Although there are losses in the process of transmitting the energy to Earth it is still a very good promise.

Now, the main argument for mining in space is: there is absolutelly no need to transmit any amount of energy to Earth. All the energy will be consumed out there, to power up as many miners as can be set to work up there. The more the merrier! It can power up the whole bitcoin mining system.

You might ask, what about centralization? It would not be centralized if the project is crowdfunded and the software is open-source. Period.

SpacePoW/SSPS/SBSP

According to many sources (see below) "Japan is developing a spacecraft that will have a square screen of solar panels measuring more than 1.2 miles along each side and use microwaves to beam energy down to Earth." [1]

It is an enormous effort. According to Wikipedia, "Space-based solar power (SBSP) is the concept of collecting solar power in outer space and distributing it to Earth. Potential advantages of collecting solar energy in space include a higher collection rate and a longer collection period due to the lack of a diffusing atmosphere, and the possibility of placing a solar collector in an orbiting location where there is no night." [2]

The major problem with the idea of capturing energy outside Earth and sending it the surface of the planet is that approximately 60% of the energy is lost due to reflection and absorption on the way down.

The Great Advantage

This is where Bitcoin SpacePoW mining fits like a glove. No energy would be lost if the energy consumed were consumed up there without the need to beam it down to Earth**

Additionally, solar panels produce direct current DC and mining software uses also DC. There are losses when the energy is converted to alternated current AC, delivered to the power grid and then after re-converting AC to DC.

Further advantages are:

using solar energy at the surface can only deliver direct power to mining machines during the day
Major losses take place due to atmospheric state and absorption.

We believe this could become a major, perhaps the greatest way to mine Bitcoins and any other cryptocurrency or blockchained system that uses Proof of Work.

We also believe Proof of Work is the best most secure way to be used on Bitcoin. Other blockchains use other proofing methods (Steemit itself uses Proof of Stake and Proof of Mining hybrid). For currency, we believe PoW is the way.

SpacePoW is a project that aims to put in orbit Solar Panels and use the energy harvested from the Sun to power bitcoin miners.

Check previous and forwards:

In this part, I'm going to put up a "chew" of info I've carefully been harvesting for quite some time about the viability of using Solar Panels in Earth orbit.

Japan comes closer to beaming solar power from SPACE: Mitsubishi makes breakthrough in sending energy wirelessly

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2993973/Japan-comes-closer-beaming-solar-power-SPACE-Mitsubishi-makes-breakthrough-sending-energy-wirelessly.html

This was published in 2015, the article reports that japanese scientists have successfully transmitted energy wirelessly from space to Earth.

How Japan Plans to Build an Orbital Solar Farm

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/how-japan-plans-to-build-an-orbital-solar-farm

By John MacNeill, informing that the SSBC project is a real goal from the japanese government. Specially, after the tragedy of Fukushima, japanese government started to look up for new and safe ways to produce energy.

Meet JAXA - The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

http://global.jaxa.jp/

The japanese agency has technology and a roadmap to build from ground up orbital structures designed to start harvesting energy and beaming it down to Earth.

SpaceX Falcon9 and Blue Origin Glenn

http://www.spacex.com/falcon9

https://www.blueorigin.com/

It is a necessity to have rockets that can launch, go into orbit and come back to Earth in order to have a sustainable bitcoin space miner, the SpacePoW project working. SpaceX and Blue Origin are private companies pushing forward this frontier.

Falcon 9

Glenn

With this new technology, it will be possible to put bitcoin miners in space collecting energy 24/7 directly from the Sun to power up the miners

http://www.takepart.com/feature/2016/06/27/solar-farms

Continuing our series of articles about Solar Energy used for mining bitcoins. SpacePoW is a project that aims to mine bitcoins in space by harvesting continuous energy from the Sun and powering up miners.