Thoughts from the Shelf

Recently on The Shelf, Google’s private enterprise competition was discussed, and how by offering a $30million the search giant hopes to boost non-government backed missions to the moon.

Such incentives only boost private funding for missions into space, and although a moon landing seems the next frontier for the private sector, it has already been successful with other areas of space travel.

So much is this the case that already the concept of ‘Space Tourism’ is not foreign to most. Although the Russian Space Agency is currently the only provider of tourist space flights, people are well aware that with enough money the opportunity to take a trip into outer space is available to anybody.

Although currently restricted to an elite group, trips into space are thought to become commonplace in the next five years, with trips to the moon estimated by 2050. There is already an inflatable hotel being developed for commercial use by Bigelow Aerospace after a successful prototype was launched into orbit last year.

So if space is the next tourist frontier, then what will participants use to pay for goods and services whilst not on Earth. Coins would be deemed to sharp and would pose a danger to astronauts, whilst chips and magnetic strips used in debit or credit cards on Earth would be damaged beyond repair by cosmic radiation. This was a question answered when I stumbled upon an unusual story today about the development of a new currency, the QUID.

The new inter-planetary currency has been designed to withstand the stress of space travel and has no sharp edges or dangerous chemicals. Made of the polymer the QUID (Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination), was designed was designed for Travelex, the popular foreign exchange company, and currently quotes the currency at £6.25 to the QUID.