{"id":10977,"date":"2018-04-03T13:44:38","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T11:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blockchainslovakia.sk\/2018\/04\/03\/vyuzitie-technologie-blockchain-v-kozmickom-priemysle\/"},"modified":"2018-04-03T15:13:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T13:13:17","slug":"vyuzitie-technologie-blockchain-v-kozmickom-priemysle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockchainslovakia.sk\/en\/2018\/04\/03\/vyuzitie-technologie-blockchain-v-kozmickom-priemysle\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Space Industry with Blockchain Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

We stand on the brink of the new space race, not fuelled by the Cold War between superpowers, but by competing private companies. It\u2019s an unbelievably fascinating and extremely important event on which clings the future of our society, civilisation and planet as a whole. In today\u2019s age space is closer and more open to us than ever before, thanks to the herculean effort of several private companies. The question today is whether there is a place in this race for small, independent companies and start-ups without multi-million budgets and what options they have.<\/em><\/p>\n

The advent of the internet as a medium for instant sharing and spreading of information in real-time, as well as a way of collaboration on specific tasks without geographical\/political restrictions gives us unique opportunity to participate on the future discoveries of our age. Just one example: the spread of the document \u201cBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System\u201d. Marshall T. Savage in his book \u201cThe Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps\u201d, (<\/em>first printed in 1992, again reprinted in 1994 with foreword from Arthur C.Clarke introduced a vision of cooperation in the form of \u201chuman laser\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201ca group of people working in synchronic harmony, creating a coherent beam of intention<\/em>\u201d. Such a\u00a0\u201chuman laser\u201d<\/em>\u00a0was responsible for the spread of the blockchain technology, which is our entry ticket towards the next epoch of human civilisation.<\/p>\n

By utilizing the concept of\u00a0\u201cThe human laser\u201d\u00a0<\/em>in the fields of science and technology and application of the decentralization principles together with new crypto-economic models will allow everyone interested to participate in the new space race and other interesting projects globally, without any constraints previously encountered in global projects.<\/p>\n

Combining the potential of the Blockchain technology with the current scientific resources could inspire more people to participate on the joint effort of conquering space. By implementing the principles of decentralization, we can exploit the dynamics of the crypto-economics and privatefunding within emerging scientific and commercial projects aimed to accelerate the exploration of space.<\/p>\n

3 main challenges in front of which we stand:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Exploitation of space to create new business opportunities and markets
\n2. Improve the global availability of space industry and help smaller companies to be more competitive on the market
\n3. To accelerate the process of exploration and use of cosmos<\/em><\/p>\n

Be it national or private companies, each of them struggle with issues that dampens their potential. It can be either limited funding or a clash of interests, the common problem is the lack of qualified staff and enormous operating costs.<\/p>\n

Nowadays the international space industry suffers from two main issues, which prevents the development of this industry as a whole:<\/p>\n

1. Security issues, mostly present among countries
\n2. Interests between private and national companies<\/em><\/p>\n

The first problem is the concern of diplomatic relations and cooperation supported by the leaders of the countries. The second problem is being addressed by the development of open-source technologies in the commercial sector and in scientific communities. Space technologies were always inaccessible and protected from the public. Space exploration and technology industry is very difficult to be entered by the new subjects, be it companies, organisations or scientific communities. Whole industry revolves around the biggest \u201cplayers\u201d, and it\u2019s very hard for anybody else to chip in, mostly because of the enormous operating costs of such projects. Nowadays it is impossible to create a software for such an application in the low-cost, or \u201cstart-up\u201d way. My humble opinion is that start-ups in cosmic industry are little more than sci-fi, not to mention an absolute lack of talents and specialized staff.<\/p>\n

Today most space projects are managed and\/or financed by governments. These project are more often than not influenced by their interests and new research or technological innovations are limited by low budget.<\/p>\n

New ways of financing the emerging space\u00a0projects<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At the dawn of the age of the internet companies and something that we know today as internet start-ups, emerging companies worked (and still work) on the basis of the traditional Venture Capital model. Most of the time a company is in the ownership of the founders and members of the working team owns shares of the company, which motivates them to work as best as they can. Thanks to the VC model, creativity and innovative projects could emerge, but that alone isn\u2019t a guarantee of success.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, long-term projects which require larger funding of research and development, like space exploration projects, aren\u2019t best-suited to be funded by the VC model. Many technologies supported by VC models would be marked as not-working, as they require far more time and capital investments to be successful and to fulfil market expectations. As an example, we can use the traditional research & development process of satellites, which can take a lot of years. Once the financing is ready, it takes a lot of time (even years) to finish the R&D, but teams can request additional funding of further phases only when they release the technologies on the market.<\/p>\n

Fundraising in the form of tokens, or more precisely as an ICO model (Initial Coin offering) presents a progressive way of financing new projects or ongoing projects. With enough funds project can gather the best talents, improve the overall effectiveness and flexibility of business and focus more on the long-term R&D. This is exceedingly in case of space technologies, where initial setbacks are expected and a large portion of funds must be allocated to R&D. Traditional VC funding isn\u2019t willing to accept such risks, that\u2019s why new models of crypto-economic funding are to be considered. The big advantage of crypto-economic funding models is the possibility of utilizing smart contracts as a way of releasing and distributing funds. Implementing smart contracts will allow us to improve the management of funds and also increases the trust of investors, as utilizing this technology also allows us to precisely set vesting and release of funds based on the set roadmap and planning.<\/p>\n

Innovations of architectures &\u00a0DSM<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The blockchain technology and its advantages didn\u2019t escape the attention of NASA and other space agencies, such as ESA, which considers its application in their own innovations of applications and architecture. Exploiting the blockchain technology has a huge potential in case of DSM (Distributed spacecraft mission), which can be imagined as \u201crelaying\u201d or coordinated joint mission among several spacecrafts. According to NASA, artificial intelligence (A.I.), together with the blockchain technology could be widely to create \u201cspace-based sensor networks\u201d and its efficient management.<\/p>\n

ESA does not lag behind and several months ago has\u00a0released a survey<\/a>\u00a0of using the blockchain technology within their ongoing and future missions. It has also\u00a0released a PDF presentation<\/a>\u00a0as a summary of the basis of the blockchain technology together with examples of its utilization within ESA. The document is dedicated mostly to faster and efficient payments together with smart contract applications, which simplifies the process of public procurement, audit process, record keeping, traceability of data, access rights or voting. It\u2019s worth to mention in contrast to NASA, ESA doesn\u2019t mention the direct application of the blockchain technology in flight software architecture or examples of application, such as aforementioned DSM.<\/p>\n

Examples of utilizing the blockchain technology in space\u00a0industry<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While at present there is a great deal of attention aimed on fintech field and cryptocurrencies, a considerable potential of these technologies lies in the innovation of the space industry, such as important mission data validation, the use of smart contracts for smart procurement the goal to optimize supply chain and information management, where applications could range from virtual spacecraft (configuration and consistency check) to communication management (hardware and documentation). As there is no real concept or proof-of-work architecture yet, this is all just a speculation and theory. It doesn\u2019t mean though that it\u2019s a sci-fi. My personal belief is that this technology has a huge potential to help future space start-ups to enter space industry market and especially in R&D of first commercial, open-source space applications.<\/p>\n

Below I shall set out three ideas of utilizing blockchain technologies in the development of space industry,\u00a0taken from the presentation for Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA).<\/a><\/p>\n

1. Basic Imaging Operations<\/strong><\/p>\n