On recently passed January 8th, the United Launch Alliance (ULA)’s Vulcan Centaur rocket soared into night skies on its first launch, carrying the first commercial Astrobotic’s Peregrine 1 lunar lander.
Peregrine 1 mission is the first-ever to be made by a private company and the first lunar launch in more than five decades by United States. The last time the US launched a Moon landing mission was in December 1972 with Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt becoming the 11th and 12th men to walk on the Moon.
Peregrine is not a NASA spacecraft but it’s a wholly commercial endeavor, developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, and it has been selected to carry out lunar deliveries for the space agency over the next few years as part of NASA’s new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
In this first launch, Peregrine Mission 1 carries out to the Moon with, among other things like mini rovers and science instruments for NASA, collections of art, archival material, human remains, nothing less than a physical “bitcoin”.
In a partnership between derivatives exchange BitMEX, robotics firm Astrobotic Technology, Bitcoin Magazine, and Oxcart Assembly, Peregrine 1 spacecraft will bring it to the lunar surface the so-called “Bitcoin Genesis Plate”, a 43 gram physical coin engraved with a private key ofa public vanity address: 1MoonBTCixFH3XTrWRCbMpK23o74nQrA1Q containing 1 bitcoin.
The Bitcoin Magazine Genesis Plate, includes also a copy of the Genesis Block the first block of bitcoin ever to be mined, just over 15 years ago.
Unfortunately six hours after launch, engineers reported a technical "anomaly", a propellant leak that thwarted the mission. So there is "no chance" that the Peregrine Mission 1 spacecraft will make a soft landing on the Moon. To land on the Moon's surface, the 1.3-ton spacecraft would have needed to reorient its engine and fire controlled bursts of propellant to slow its descent. Without sufficient propellant the spacecraft would crash on the lunar surface, so the last goal of the mission is now to travel the spacecraft as far as possible before losing power.
Few days or so and that Peregrine 1 with its payload and the first bitcoin headed for the Moon will be lost in space forever.
Ok I know, is only 1 bitcoin lost among millions of others which are supposedly lost forever, but this case is very peculiar and even unique, given that it is not the case of a man who lost his private key, or someone who burned the hard disk of his computer with 8,000 bitcoins inside, here we are talking about of a wallet, with his private key, that were sent to the Moon inside a space capsule.
Ok it's just a single bitcoin, which although lost in space, doesn't deserve to set up a recovery mission and send Professor John Robinson and its family on the spaceship Jupiter II for recover the private key engraved on the 43 gram physical Genesis Plate.
It's just a single bitcoin lost in space, but is the first bitcoin of its kind.
Who knows, maybe it will be E.T. himself, while riding his bicycle in the sky between the Earth and the Moon, who finds the coin with the private key engraved on it.
Obviously, always starting from the assumption that BitMEX, Astrobotic Technology, Bitcoin Magazine and Oxcart Assembly do not have a copy of the private key of the 1MoonBTCixFH3XTrWRCbMpK23o74nQrA1Q address, which they themselves created, financed and sent to the Moon.
I've just created "The first Bitcoin lost in space on its way to the Moon!" collectible!
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