I’ve been speaking to a company that sends cargo up to the International Space Station and assigns tasks (such as experiments) to astronauts on board. I’d like to propose sending a 3d printed Noun to the ISS. This would be the first time a crypto or NFT character has ever traveled in space, and would generate a lot of publicity and forever be part of Nouns lore. The memes that can be generated from this event would be endless. With this project, Nouns DAO would be pushing the boundary of what crazy things can be achieved by DAOs.
DANIT (in the Nouns Discord) would do the design and 3d printing of the Noun character to go up into space. We would mail the 3d printed figurine to the company and they would put it on the next available rocket going up to ISS. Once
Option 1: Astronauts can take a picture of the Noun, with various backgrounds such as the inside of the space station and the window looking out on the Earth. These pictures would be sent to us and circulated in traditional and social media. Cost would be roughly 38 ETH.
Option 2: We could go a step further and put the Noun in a small cubesat satellite and launch it into space from the ISS. The process of loading the Noun into the cubesat and the cubesat getting floated away from the ISS can be documented and sent back to the DAO. Cost is approximately 84 ETH.
Note that the costs provided are approximate and subject to change.
Timeline:
-Proposal voted on and contract signed by mid Dec.
-Payments to be made at various stages once deliverables are met
-Launch to happen mid to late 2022. Contract should ideally be signed with the company by mid Dec in order to meet this launch window.
very cool! what is the best way for us to do oversight/diligence on the 3rd parties involved (‘company’) as well as generally build assurance around self-dealing concerns? would proposed contract be circulated before proposal vote?
It makes sense to have a small committee of 2-3 Nouners who can do due diligence on the contract and make sure governance is tight. There is no reason why we should share the contract or details of the arrangement public outside of the DAO. What we are doing is novel and creative and I don’t want to reveal the secret sauce, or provide a roadmap for copycats.
THIS IS AMAZING!!! We would be thrilled to sculpt, prototype and deliver this sculpture in a durable material that can withstand handling before , during and after launch. Provide a durable case with nouns branding etc. We can also create a small edition of multiples of this “Space Noun” for all the noun holders to commemorate this event. (production time and costs TBD for multiples.) The choice of noun to go to space can be voted on or be an auction for a space themed Noun. (laika head, Helmet, star, moon etc)
This particular Noun can celebrate exploration and a part of the funds raised can go to education and other worthy causes. I can work with the community to help develop and expedite this. Despite our crazy schedule we can do most of this including deliver a space ready prototype in about 3-4 weeks Can work out pricing as well. while some of you may be familiar with our work www.bigshottoyworks.com will give you an idea of what we do.
This is so cool. Props to @noun53 for following up his Name a Frog proposal with another very novel and clever idea. Personally, I think the most impactful and memeable content would come from Option 1 - I think we want to have pictures of the Noun in the space station and next to the window looking down on earth. Having a Noun in a satellite is also very cool, but I think we would get far more mileage from images.
I am happy to be a part of the governance/diligence group when this gets in motion.
The company went to NASA with their proposal and costs, and it looks like NASA will have to charge a whole hour of time at their market rate of $130k per astronaut hour in order to guarantee the photograph we need. Originally they thought only 30 min of time would have to be booked. Part of the reason it’s so expensive is because they need to unpack the item, go to the part of the station where there is a window overlooking the Earth, and wait for the sun to rise (once every 20 min) before taking the picture. Then they need to properly store or dispose of the item which also costs money.
I’d also like to add a 5 ETH project management cost to compensate me for the time spent, as this project will take 12 months from start to finish (I’ve been in discussions and calls over the last 2 months to get the proposal to this point).
Here is the new budget breakdown:
NASA Astronaut time: 29 ETH
Pre launch testing, launch, and return: 15 ETH
Project management by Noun 53: 5 ETH
Design and creation of 3d printed Noun: 1 ETH
I think this is a great idea and pretty cheap for the DAO to do and I’m excited to vote for it. I’m thinking about how we could make better use of pushing mass up into space and give some more value back to the world while Nouns gets pictures. Stuff like this is likely a design detail and not material to the actual on-chain proposal:
A 3D printed Noun feels like there’s N amount of printer fill space in the head/body. Could we be able to put some sort of small microcontroller or other boards in the Noun to do some sort of scientific experiment? It certainly wouldn’t be any sort of groundbreaking science but we could work with some school to make a little “record acceleration through the Noun’s journey” controller that could introduce some kids to space science.
I like the thinking on this, and agree that turning the Noun into a science experiment would reduce the cost on astronaut’s time. However once it turns into an experiment, the astronaut is no longer obligated to bring the Noun to the window overlooking the Earth, wait for the sun to rise, and take a picture of it. This increases the risk of sending the Noun into space without having any good pictures to show for it.
I would support doing something that generated a benefit to science, but only if it didn’t compromise the photo in any way. In my mind, the photo is absolutely critical.
That’s interesting to hear they treat photo item and experiment as exclusive. I agree that getting the picture would be more important, was just thinking how we could get extra benefit out of that kerosene rocket fuel.
I am a big fan of sending an NFT into space. Need a couple things clarified:
In Feb 2021 JP Morgan “tested blockchain payments between satellites orbiting the earth” so, as far as I know, they were the first to send crypto to outer space
Shouldn’t the Noun be displayed on a screen? Doesn’t printing a 3D object defeat the purpose of promoting non-fungible token technology?
The cost of doing this would be about 10 ETH. However since it has been done already, I didn’t think there would be as much value in this. Soon AWS and Azure will have data servers in space and sending NFTs or any kind of data up into space might not be as special anymore. However we could still do it, and I could make this an additional proposal.
The reason I like sending up a physical object is to make a Noun come to life and be represented in physical space. Kind of like having a sculpture of a Noun in a city or a building with a Noun painted on it makes it feel more real and permanent. It will also make for a better picture. Yes, it’s costlier, but that also increases the barrier of entry for copycats projects.
fwiw - i think there are better ways to spend 63 eth. the fact that this won’t be the first time there will be an “NFT in space” strengthens my belief.
don’t want to be a downer - “Noun in Space” would be cool but i don’t see much bang for our buck.
out of all space-y nouns wouldn’t saturn head be, by a large margin, the most interesting engineering challenge for DANIT/astronaut team? thin walls and all that…
