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Is there any advantage to running a node in the ISS?
by lottin 5y ago
Is there any advantage to running a node in the ISS?
- donkeybeer 5y agoSiphoning scarce power from the ISS to pointless mining of course.
- swiley 5y agoMost nodes don't mine.
- risyachka 5y agoTo run a node you need low spec PC so the power consumption is probably around 60W.
- 0x64 5y agoYou're confusing nodes with mining, you don't really need much more than a RasPi with a sufficiently large SSD to run a node.
- donkeybeer 5y agoEven if so, I still don't see the point of wasting the space and power, however small, on what has no use being in space.
- ceejayoz 5y agoAnd bandwidth.
- bingbong70 5y agoYou are confusing BTC and ETH... A fully validating BTC node can be run on a raspberry pi, a full ETH node requires much more equipment.
- st_goliath 5y agoa) It's a PR stunt. Adding *in space* works a lot better than "SpaceX is running an Ethereum node" alone. a.1) Particularly for the company "SpaceChain" that actually runs it, ridding piggy back PR on the name of SpaceX and the recent Tesla/Bitcoin craze. b) Every time Elon Musk appears in a sentence together with crypto currencies, prices bounce around (exactly what you want in a currency, right). This can be used deliberately to make bank and in contrast to the stock market, there is no regulatory body stopping/punishing that. c) Last time I checked, the ISS didn't have a diesel generator standing out back, so it will run on solar power only (which is of course offset by burning rocket fuel to get there in the first place, and probably by burning itself up when eventually returning home)
- mattashii 5y agoSpace has different risk factors than places on earth, so this diversifies the risks of the ETH network by adding another dimension of geographic decentralization. Why the ISS -> probably because it has a well-understood power, data & thermal framework that the company now doesn't have to build for themselves, nor do they now have to manage the orbit of their node.
- saba2008 5y agoPlease describe scenario, when that 'another dimension of geographic decentralization' has any effect.
- eric__cartman 5y agoIn this case it doesn't. If there is a catastrophic failure on earth so big that it wipes out all electrical systems and kills all computers the ISS won't survive for long without any resupplying. In that case you'll have an ETH node orbiting earth in a station full of dead people.
- mattashii 5y agoSuch scenarios are mostly hypothetical, and would mostly include world-ending situations such as planetary impactors. Do note that I'm not advocating for ETH-nodes in space, I'm just putting up reasons for sending [stuff] into space. If you had a very lucrative webshop, you could decide to do HA by sending some of your servers to space. It doesn't logistically or practically make any sense, but the reasons for doing so are not wrong per se.