Hi All,
What started out as a little tongue-in-cheek discussion on our OpenChat community, Kibosh Corner, about Utopia, quickly morphed into some serious blue sky thinking. I’d love to hear your thoughts on a radical use case for the ICP network to go off planet, having a public/private sub-net in low Earth orbit running on Starlink satellites.
Allow me to first summarize the discussion before we get into the proposal. This started with some light hearted banter about filling in the enquiry form “Start your Journey with Utopia.” for the self-proclaimed technoking Elon Musk.
We discussed possible reasons why Elon hasn’t publicly acknowledged ICP as the best technology in the industry. As he is probably just saving it for the breakaway civilization on Mars.
The time for ICP has now arrived. We speculated that Elon and his organizations may be well aware of ICP’s technology, as the only feasible Web3 solution to host everything fully in-chain, but perhaps researching it behind closed doors. I was also reminded that last year, Tesla dumped their Bitcoin, due to criticism about Bitcoin’s energy consumption. Aside from being the best technology, the ICP network is very energy efficient with some of the greenest credentials in the industry. The ICP network and Utopia solve all of these issues previously articulated by Elon.
Now for the juicy part…
In jest, I suggested we should make an ICP proposal for a new sub-net in space in collaboration with SpaceX (Starlink). How cool would it be for the ICP network to go off planet and be the first blockchain protocol in space. SpaceX can use the Starlink satellites network for other purposes beyond WiFi.
After some further consideration this may indeed be possible, which leads the genuine enquiry and potential, albeit quite radical, use case for ICP and/or Utopia.
Background
Looking at the latest figures, there are currently over 6,000 Starlink satellites in low earth orbit. These mainly providing Internet access to stationary and mobile receivers on Terra Firma. Starlink recently signed defence contracts for providing secure satellite phone communications. So clearly the software for the satellites and receivers is upgradable.
The firmware for the Starlink satellites actually run on a Linux operating system
Given, DFX SDK for the Internet Computer runs on Mac OS as well as Linux. This should be interoperable with Starlink.
With a Linux OS and internet connections, it could therefore be technically possibly to create a secure public/private ICP network, such as envisaged by Utopia, using Starlink satellites orbiting planet Earth.
Proposal
Dfinity to research this as a potential use case and collaboration with SpaceX.
Benefits
- ICP to be the first crypto network in space.
- As a potential Utopia use case for X, Tesla and SpaceX for a secure private decentralized cloud with enhanced cybersecurity for their Government, Defence and NGO customers.
- Possibility to access the ICP network across the globe from any location.
- Grow the number of ICP nodes with Starlink having a network of 6,000 satellites in orbit.
- Good for humanity. DeFi for the world’s population of “unbanked” citizens, currently with no access to financial service.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the proposal. It would be amazing to get some feedback from the Dfinity foundation and/or senior management regarding feasibility and/or next steps.
I think it’s high time you invited Elon over for to visit to HQ. Dom and Jan, if you are reading this, please reach out to him and make this happen 
It goes without saying you are all welcome to join us over on OpenChat in the Kibosh Corner community.
Regards,
Kibosh
It’d be amazing to see how it expands the nodes and boosts cybersecurity.