space the final frontier - to go where none has gone before

Two great news items this week concerning "the final frontier":

              Crowdfunded nanosatellites unleashed in orbit

                Alan Boyle, Science EditorNBC News

                 Nov. 19, 2013 at 5:59 PM ET

Two tiny satellites supported by Kickstarter campaigns were kicked out into orbit from the International Space Station on Tuesday, beginning what's expected to be a months-long citizen science mission.

NanoSatisfi's ArduSat 1 and ArduSat X nanosatellites were deployed by a Japanese-built, spring-loaded launcher attached to the space station. A Vietnamese-built nanosat called PicoDragon was sent out as well. All three satellites were built to CubeSat specifications, 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side, and delivered to the station in August aboard anunmanned Japanese cargo ship.

The ArduSats were funded in part by a Kickstarter crowdfunding effort that raised more than $100,000. NanoSatisfi's venture-capital backers kicked in an additional $1 million-plus to get the project off the ground. Each CubeSat costs on the order of $200,000 to build.

Peter Platzer, a former research physicist and Wall Street trader who co-founded NanoSatisfi last year, said he started getting congratulatory emails about the ArduSat deployment from European supporters at 4 a.m. PT (7 a.m. ET). "It is an unbelievable amount of relief and excitement that is going on," he told NBC News.

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         Virgin Galactic Accepts Bitcoin for Space Travel, says

         Billionaire Entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson

                   Emily Spaven (@emilyspaven) | Published on November 22, 2013 at 14:03 GMT | Companies, Lifestyle,Merchants, News

Sir Richard Branson has revealed that his commercial space flight venture Virgin Galactic is to accept payment in bitcoins.

The 63-year-old entrepreneur is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which owns more than 400 companies including the Virgin Atlantic airline and telecommunications provider Virgin Media.

A post on Branson’s blog states that a female flight attendant from Hawaii has already purchased her Virgin Galactic ticket in bitcoins.

“We expect many more to follow in her footsteps. All of our future astronauts are pioneers in their own right, and this is one more way to be forward thinking,” the post continues.

Many of the early ticket holders for the suborbital space flights are also bitcoin fans, including actor Ashton Kutcher and Shervin Pishevar, investor in Uber and Tumblr.

Pishevar commented that space travel and bitcoin’s “stratospheric rise” go well together. He added: “Branson is a true visionary and embracing bitcoin is an important endorsement. I look forward to paying for Branson’s future space hotels in bitcoins. To infinity and beyond!”

Branson reveals he has already invested in some bitcoins and encourages others to do the same. He said that, like bitcoin, Virgin Galactic is forward thinking, so it makes sense for the company to offer digital currency as a way to pay for journeys into space.

The first commercial suborbital flight, which is to be televised by NBC Universal, is set to take place in 2014.

“We would be delighted to welcome more of the bitcoin community as future astronauts,” his blog post concludes.

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