Elon Musk, a tech mogul with indirect ties to the crypto industry, sent two humans into orbit on May 30 in the first private, manned space craft launch in history. "The launch will be the first time a private company, rather than a national government, sends astronauts into orbit," Fox News said in a May 27 brief. "It will also be the first time that astronauts launch from U.S. soil since the final space shuttle mission in 2011." Ground control to Maj. Musk Known for his leadership of futuristic car company Tesla, CEO Elon Musk disrupted the rocket sector in …

NASA is looking to hire a data scientist with crypto and blockchain expertise. Crypto and blockchain considered a plus According to a LinkedIn job listing posted on Sept. 20, NASA has a vacancy at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, whose primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft and conducting Earth-orbit missions. Among the high number of required qualifications, NASA listed knowledge in one or more related fields including big data, machine learning, Internet of Things, analytics, statistics and cloud computing. In a separate line, the agency sought experience with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, stating that …

An American computer scientist has managed to mine Bitcoin (BTC) on a 52-year-old Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), British tech media outlet IT Pro reports on July 9. Ken Shirriff, a specialist in reverse engineering, has reportedly worked out a code that enabled him to mine Bitcoin on one of the first integrated circuit-based computers that were used to navigate the first moon landings by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1960s. As Shirriff wrote on his personal website, the machine on which he managed to integrate Bitcoin mining code is the world’s only remaining working AGC. With …

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has proposed an air traffic management blockchain, according to a paper published on the agency’s official website on Jan. 10. The proposed system would employ an open-source permissioned blockchain to enable secure, private and anonymous communication with air traffic services. The document notes: “This framework features certificate authority, smart contract support, and higher-bandwidth communication channels for private information that may be used for secure communication between any specific aircraft and any particular authorized member.” The engineering prototype of the system reportedly employed the Hyperledger Fabric and demonstrated that such infrastructure could …

Space is an area that has been historically researched by few governments, being a complex matter that requires thorough, high-class research and, therefore, substantial funding. More recently, with the emerging popularity of audacious startups like SpaceX, space exploration has become a less exclusive area. Now, however, it seems that the cryptocurrencies’ primary features — blockchain, its underlying technology, and the concept of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), its crowdfunding model — are bringing in even more power into the previously unshared territory. Big players are adopting blockchain for space exploration: Space giants like the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration …