MichaelEugeneTurner

I have reservations about BitCoin, but mainly on the monetary policy level. Inflation sometimes has its uses in economic policy, and deflation can sometimes be a lot more disastrous than inflation. I think BitCoin, by capping the total amount of money that can possibly circulate, would lend itself to liquidity traps - a deflationary spiral.

However, the idea of "computationally mining the sky" (not just using solar energy, but also using the cosmos as a heat sink) is positively brilliant. Perhaps the only question is: when will its time come?

To be clear: I wasn't proposing KickSat as a business model. That never even occurred to me. For one thing, immediate practicality seems like... (read more)

The Lofstrom Loop might be hamstrung by the problem of The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects. http://www.jetpress.org/volume4/space.htm

Prototyping ServerSky is quite the opposite, however: it's going to become much easier. And if prototyping it shows a clear-cut business case, the decision to launch ServerSky becomes only net-present-value computation, not a problem of political economy. If the Lofstrom Loop proves to be the most cost-effective way to scale ServerSky (and maintain it), it'll just happen.

Here's how I think prototyping ServerSky could become easier: Zac Montgomery at Cornell announced a Kickstarter project last year called KickSat: a CubeSat that sprays chipsats (Sprites). He met his funding target quite handily -- in fact surpassed... (read 384 more words →)