Yes, NFTs were sent to the International Space Station thanks to Infinity Labs.
In July 2021, Aku became the first NFT to orbit the Earth on a space station; it featured a young black astronaut.
Artist Micah Johnson’s nephew inspired him to create the NFT when he asked his mother, “Can astronauts be Black?”
According to Artemis music, Aku was sent from Nanorock control in Texas and sent to the server. The file stayed in the station’s server for 2 hours as it orbited Earth and then sent back to Earth. Engineers used the transfer data and telemetry to authenticate the entire process.
In September’s Inspiration4 private spaceflight via SpaceX also included NFTs, including music from the Kings of Leon in a three-day flight. All civilian spaceflight had 51 NFTs, and “Time in Disguise,” the first minted NFT song to be played in orbit produced by the Kings of Leon band. The project aimed to sell the NFTs at an auction and raise $200 million for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
Payload to the ISS
While crypto degens dream about pumping coins and non-fungible tokens to the moon, this project organized by Infinity Labs will beam NFTs to the stars.
Infinity Labs is a project by Solana that will see a collection of non-fungible tokens from numerous projects beamed into space.
Infinity Eve, the founder of Infinity labs, shared with Decrypt that she gained inspiration from the space Voyager trip in 1977 which included a Golden record inscribed with music from all over the world; she got the idea while undergoing aggressive cancer treatment during the Covid pandemic.
And I was obsessed with this idea that if I could put art and stories onto the blockchain, I could build something really beautiful that could outlive me in some ways if anything were to happen to me.
Infinity Eve
Dreambound Orbital is a web3 company that launches blockchain experiments into orbit. The Infinity project was their first payload to the space station, sent on December 15, 2022. Dreambound Orbital will streamline the activity live from Houston, Texas.
Alongside InfinityLabs in the trip will be NFTs from Solana, Brave, Phantom, Metaplex, World of Women, OpenSea, Magic Eden, MonkeDAO, DeGods, Fractal, and many more.
The NFTs span Solana and Ethereum blockchains and will be “beamed into neighboring systems,” said Infinity Eve. Such projects could enable a future digital space economy and NFT space museum.
The project utilizes the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, the first permanent, commercial addition to the space station infrastructure that has launched over 1300 payloads to date.
Final thoughts
In response to hard critics, Eve shared that people should keep an open mind since such actions breed inspiration for future innovations. Similar experiments resulted in GPS innovation.
Outside web 3, such an initiative could also bring practical commercial applications and research. Eve added that some of our life’s realities, like smartphones, were inspired by science fiction (Sci-fi). At the least, the project helped her to reinvent herself and heal.
Creators have auctioned NFTs flown to space for charitable courses back on Earth.
Crypto degens can now dream a reality. The new paradigm brings opportunities for NFT creators and allows artists to dream.
The crypto winter of 2022 has been harsh for the entire crypto industry, and such events are a ray of hope for many destitute enthusiasts.
