8. Sustainable Money Mechanics in Space

The effects of psychological time are discussed through duration, memory, and forgetfulness, which define the relative importance of events in shaping expectations and behaviours, irrespective of physical time distances. A unique modality of analysing the impact of the past on present and future expectations (Blanqué 2021).

Indeed, calendar time is a human conception with a diverse history of evolution around the world. The Gregorian calendar, designed by Aloysius Lilius (c. 1510–1576), also known as Luigi Lilio, and introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582, is a solar calendar and is used by most of the world today and has grown in prominence for the same reasons. Today we have ISO standards that govern date and time notations and calculations. While with religious origins, an adjustment to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar has been adopted by civil authorities around the world. A relatively recent adoption example is Saudi Arabia, which adopted the Gregorian calendar in 2016, but continues to use the Lunar Islamic calendar in parallel (Economist, 2016). Religious and other regional calendars are still used in specific parts of the world, like the Jewish Lunar Calendar, but they are not used as a reference in global banking and commerce today.

The history of the Prime Meridian is fascinating. There was a time in human history when we had more than one ‘prime meridian’ used by different empires. Recognising the challenge of coordinated communication and trade based on different reference points, the Greenwich Prime Meridian was selected in 1884. See Withers (2017) for a fascinating account of the history behind this central concept that makes our own time and space an intelligible reality. See Malys et al. (2015) for measurement and technical history and measurement differences in the Prime Meridian.

Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, Geostationary Orbit.

The Futron (2002) report published by the Futron Corporation reports the historical cost per pound to orbit on a historical basis and provides a summary of the key aspects.

I would like to note here that Islamic finance, in principle at least, requires that capital earns a return rather than interest. As such, in principle, Islamic instruments require that investments involve productive activity, sharing risks and profits. In an article I wrote in 2011, titled, Islamic Money Creation, I proposed that Islamic finance principles can help develop or support a new approach to monetisation, involving equity-like features based on risk sharing (Papazian, 2011b).

I have provided an early version of this graphical flow diagram in a Harvard Business School consulting project interview done for the Defense Innovation Unit in the US.

Goswami and Garretson (2020) in their book, Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space, provide a detailed review and analysis of the vast outer space resources and the opportunities and challenges that they represent for humanity and the many states in competition to master the technologies necessary to acquire them.

Naturally, as we start issuing the first PCNs, government debts and Public Capitalisation Notes will coexist. Gradually, the system can be transitioned to a wealth floor architecture. For systemic preservation purposes, the debt ceiling and the wealth floor can also coexist.

To avoid any confusion, note that the discussion does not refer to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). The Federal Reserve describes CBDCs as ‘"Central bank money” refers to money that is a liability of the central bank. In the United States, there are currently two types of central bank money: physical currency issued by the Federal Reserve and digital balances held by commercial banks at the Federal Reserve. While Americans have long held money predominantly in digital form—for example in bank accounts, payment apps or through online transactions—a CBDC would differ from existing digital money available to the general public because a CBDC would be a liability of the Federal Reserve, not of a commercial bank’ (FED, 2022).

For a relative understanding of the numbers, note that the two highest consuming countries, China and USA, use, respectively, 6875.09 TWh and 3843.83 TWh per year (CCAF 2022).

Emphasis added.