Bitnation now has a space program. The Bitnation Space Agency will be headed by Iman Mirbioki and experiment with drones that fly in formations in order to develop a navigational system based on a new type of Fiber Optic Gyroscopes (FOG). The program is officially called Spacechain Space Program and their website can be found here. According to their website:

Our mission is to explore the universe, discover, develop science and technology that will push the human civilization further. All technology will be available as open source.

The 35-year-old Mirbloki comes from Sweden, and has worked in many different areas from IT to media. His passion since he was a child, however, has been space travel. As he writes on the Spacechain.org blog:

Although I’ve studied what was required to fulfill my dream, when I enlisted to the Swedish Air force for further training and eventually being accepted for the astronaut training at the European Space Agency (ESA), my hearing impairment crushed that dream.

The project is perhaps the most ambitious for Bitnation, which has mostly focused on providing “the same services traditional governments provides” through the Bitcoin block chain. Powered by Bitcoin 2.0 block chain technology, Bitnation has looked to achieve their mission “in a geographically unbound, decentralized, and voluntary way.”

As the team likes to say, “Block chains, not borders.”

Some have indeed criticized the project, pointing towards Bitnation’s reluctance to incorporate with any nation-state. As Tempelhof has contended, “naturally, it isn’t, since that’s one of the things we’re offering as a service, incorporation on the block chain.”

There is more to the Bitnation Space Agency than FOG.

“We’re also developing different types of rocket-fuel that are environment-friendly, in contrast to the very toxic Hydrazine that’s standard in the space industry,” Bitnation founder Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof told CCN.com. “Another aspect of the “fuel-program” is building hybrid engines, using both jet/rocket technology.”

Bitnation still focuses on the alpha launch of their platform Bitnation Pangea, “the world’s first crypto-nation,” and has been busy this year.

“This year we’ve done the world’s first block chain birth certificate (with my newborn nephew and godson Sion), and the worlds first land title test, in Ghana, on the block chain,” Tempelhof said.