An astronaut looks out a spacecraft window at Earth's curvature

Six seats. One rocket.
Everyday people.

Meridian puts six people who aren't test pilots, and aren't billionaires, into an actual seat on an actual flight. Five regions compete. The community decides who flies - verified as real, unique, eligible people, not whoever controls the most wallets.

Become an Astronaut → How Ground Truth works
VH

Victor Hespanha

BRAZIL'S SECOND ASTRONAUT · FIRST CIVILIAN TO FLY · DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY PROGRAMS, SOUTH AMERICA

In 2022, Victor Hespanha, a 29-year-old civil engineer from Brazil, flew as the first civilian aboard the first crewed suborbital mission. The mission's success opened the door to the six-seat selection running right now.

Earth's atmosphere glowing at the limb, seen from orbit
Our Next Mission

Six seats, five regions, one flight

Meridian has reserved six seats on the next flight. Six people become astronauts. For at least two of them, it'll be their nation's first.

6seats reserved
5regions competing
1flight, one crew
Digital ID

Ground Truth

A badge-and-pledge selection system is normally vulnerable to whoever controls the most wallets. Here, the prize is a physical seat on a real rocket - a winning candidate has to be one real, eligible person, verified before the vote starts, not disputed after it ends.

1

One credential, one person

Non-transferable, issued once per verified human - not once per wallet. No amount of extra wallets increases your standing.

2

Built on Robinhood Chain's existing verification

Anyone using Robinhood Wallet has already gone through real identity verification to use Robinhood's own brokerage and crypto products. Ground Truth reads that existing signal rather than standing up a redundant KYC pipeline of its own.

3

Confirms age and nationality upfront

18+ and declared nationality are checked before Phase 1 starts - which also correctly places you on the right regional leaderboard from day one, not after a dispute.

What Ground Truth doesn't do: it confirms you're a real, unique, eligible person. It does not confirm you'll pass the mission's physical or medical astronaut-fitness requirements - that's a separate, later, real-world process for finalists only. The "third-party KYC" in Phase 2 below is a deeper, slower background and medical check layered on top of Ground Truth, run on the handful of people who actually make it that far - not something every participant sits through on day one.
Earth's limb at golden hour, seen from the International Space Station
Mission Accepted

Your Astronaut Journey

Earth from the ISS - the neighborhood you're actually applying to.

Basic Requirements

  • Open to anyone 18 or older
  • Must meet the mission's requirements for weight, height, physical fitness, and citizenship
  • Basic English proficiency required, for safety-critical communication only

Earn Votes

  • Tell your story on your Mission profile page
  • Build support through your own network - this isn't seeded for you
  • Complete themed content prompts to reach past your existing followers
Regional Standings

Regional Leaderboards

Every candidate below cleared Ground Truth before a single $MERIDIAN could be pledged to them, earned or bought. Rankings are public, and the ✓ means verified - not endorsed by us.

West Africa

1 SEAT
1Kwame Boateng ✓18,420 $MERIDIAN
2Ngozi Eze ✓15,110 $MERIDIAN
3Kofi Mensah ✓9,860 $MERIDIAN

South Asia

1 SEAT
1Priyanka Shah ✓21,904 $MERIDIAN
2Fatima Sheikh ✓17,332 $MERIDIAN
3Arjun Nair ✓12,505 $MERIDIAN

Southeast Asia

1-2 SEATS
1Mateo Reyes ✓19,760 $MERIDIAN
2Siti Rahman ✓18,995 $MERIDIAN
3Nguyen Linh ✓14,201 $MERIDIAN

South America

1 SEAT
1Valentina Rojas ✓20,118 $MERIDIAN
2Diego Fernandez ✓16,447 $MERIDIAN
3Camila Torres ✓11,290 $MERIDIAN

Eastern Europe

1 SEAT
1Kasia Nowak ✓17,655 $MERIDIAN
2Andrei Popescu ✓14,882 $MERIDIAN
3Elena Kovac ✓10,573 $MERIDIAN

The leaderboard isn't running on real activity yet. The names, ranks, and $MERIDIAN amounts above are indicative renderings of how it will look and work, not live standings.

The Andromeda galaxy, a mosaic of overlapping telescope frames
Three-Phase Selection Process

Earn, Influence, Support

Each phase raises the stakes and changes what's actually being measured - commitment, then community, then a crew's ability to work as one.

Astronaut Candidacy

PHASE 1
Mechanics

Earn $MERIDIAN, Meridian's onchain token, to unlock your Astronaut Candidate badge. Unlocking it claims your spot on your regional leaderboard. The $MERIDIAN threshold is set by community size and activity, announced before the phase closes.

Earn path

Four verified actions, each capped per Ground Truth credential to prevent farming: translating mission materials into a regional language (moderator-reviewed), referring a new candidate who completes their own Ground Truth credential, completing Meridian's astronaut-eligibility education modules, and moderating other candidates' Mission profiles for accuracy. No action here is repeatable at volume by one person - that's deliberate.

Progression

One global leaderboard, ranked by total $MERIDIAN earned through the actions above. Higher rank means more visibility - not a guaranteed seat.

Collective Action

PHASE 2
Mechanics

$MERIDIAN collection continues. Badge holders complete third-party KYC to confirm which regional seat they're eligible to compete for. Your position is then driven by $MERIDIAN pledged to you by others - you can pledge your own $MERIDIAN to yourself too.

Progression

Top 10 per region by pledged support move to a regional community vote, weighted by earned badges, not token balance. Top 3 per region advance. Pledged $MERIDIAN returns to everyone who pledged it.

Crew Selection

FINAL
Mechanics

Each crew is 6 people: one candidate from each of the 5 regions' top 3, plus one at-large wildcard seat filled by the highest-ranked candidate globally who didn't make a regional crew. Multiple 6-person crews compete; crews go through astronaut training together, broadcast in full: performance, teamwork, readiness.

Progression

The final vote is for a crew, not an individual. The winning crew reports for astronaut training roughly 8-10 weeks before launch. If a crew member fails final medical or fitness screening during training, the highest-ranked runner-up in that same seat category is promoted - the crew doesn't fly short a person, and it isn't re-voted.

$MERIDIAN

What the token actually does

$MERIDIAN is a real, tradeable token on Robinhood Chain - not just an in-app score. That's a deliberate trade-off, not a hidden one: buying $MERIDIAN now genuinely helps a candidate's standing, the way it wouldn't have under the earlier earn-only design.

1

Pledge power

Pledge $MERIDIAN to back a candidate's leaderboard position - earned or bought, it counts the same. Pledged $MERIDIAN returns to you after Phase 2 either way; backing a candidate who doesn't advance costs you nothing but the wait.

2

Staking yield

Stake $MERIDIAN to earn a share of real platform revenue - brand partnerships, broadcast licensing, sponsored profile placements. Yield comes from actual deals, not from newly issued tokens.

3

Governance

$MERIDIAN holders vote on platform rules - regional seat allocation, badge thresholds, phase timing. This is scoped to the rules of the game, not the outcome of it: see the guardrail below.

The guardrail that didn't change: the final crew vote - top 3 candidates per region down to the crew that actually flies - stays weighted by earned badges, not $MERIDIAN balance. Money can help a candidate get noticed. It doesn't get to be the vote that puts them on the rocket.
Where money still matters, stated plainly: $MERIDIAN pledges decide who makes the Phase 2 shortlist - the top 10 per region who even reach the badge-weighted vote. A well-funded candidate with a thin story can out-shortlist a strong candidate with less backing. The guardrail above protects the vote itself. It does not protect who gets voted on.
Show The Work

Verification, Not Vibes

Most of what makes a project like this legitimate isn't a bigger claim - it's removing the places a skeptic would poke first. Here's what's checkable, not just asserted.

1

Independent vote observer

A neutral third party outside Meridian confirms the final crew vote tally matches the onchain record before it's announced - their count, published next to ours, not instead of it.

2

Multi-sig treasury

A 5-signer multisig controls treasury funds: Meridian operations, an independent auditor, a community-elected signer, aerospace legal counsel, and an escrow agent. No single signer, including us, moves funds alone.

3

Milestone-based release

Seat deposit funds don't sit fully available to us on day one. They release in tranches, against contractual milestones that are public before they're hit, not after.

The Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula
An Inclusive Space Future

Potential, unlocked

Meridian exists so the offworld economy isn't limited to the people who could already afford to get there.

Community-Driven

Later this year, Meridian opens a platform for members to propose, structure, fund, and run their own space-adjacent research projects - not just vote on someone else's.