“Art is a place where we create our own realities, created realities are based on trust and guidelines. Without guidelines and rules it’s all meaningless. In conceptual art, it’s the idea and execution. Sol LeWitt’s Incomplete Open Cubes (1974) and CryptoPunks (2017) have a lot in common. Both establish basic guidelines which generate a defined set of outcomes.

Fungible just means interchangeable. What you’re saying with a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is that the idea is unchangeable — locked. A token is a receipt, or series of instructions, it turns an idea into something concrete and authenticated.

In art, there is a piece of paper called a certificate of authenticity. At Sotheby’s, an auction house, a crumpled ball of duct tape I gave someone 25 years ago only has commercial value if I sign a piece of paper certifying I made it. With that signed certificate of authenticity the scrappy little ball of duct tape is now art, without it, it’s commercially worthless.

What’s exciting about NFTs is that the rules, the boundaries, are transparent and concrete throughout the blockchain. No one person owns the information, everyone controls it. The system is democratic and decentralized. It is utopian.

The NFT has shown us that you don’t need the art world to consecrate you. You can do it yourself, whoever you are. That is liberating.”

A successful NFT project pushes the NFT art space forward and grows the community. It educates new users, and inspires them to take a seat at the table. It amplifies the best qualities of the current community. It respects the established framework, and brings a new perspective. A successful project bridges the gap, carrying utility in both the metaverse and “meat-space.” It is fair. It is transparent. It uses the full potential of the blockchain. It’s here for the long haul.

These are the guiding principles for this project. This White Paper will give you the ways, in detail, of how we get there.

“We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.” — Carl Sagan

Humankind’s future is in the cosmos. We will venture to the stars, other worlds, and other dimensions. How will we get there?

Art grants us the ability to be architects of our own reality. In 2007, the Tom Sachs Space Program landed two astronauts on the surface of the Moon. In 2012, we put a human on Mars, and in 2016 we explored Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter. Our Space Program is handmade, built using plywood, steel, foam-core and glue. Through our labor and commitment, our Space Program becomes as real as the other NASA and its missions.

By realizing details to an extreme degree the experience becomes authentic. When we create a toilet out of Prada packaging, or a Space Program using a hot glue gun, we build the world not the way it is, but the way we want it to be.

In the Tom Sachs Studio one plus one equals a million. The combination of two wrong things, in just the right way, transcends the sum of its parts. This is the power the artist has over industry. For the last thirty years, Tom has synthesized the precision of industry with the imperfection of hand-made sculpture. Sampling consumer culture, remixing, dubbing and spitting it back out again.

The next mission to the Moon could be aboard a commercial rocket. Space has become an industry. We recognize the role commerce will inevitably play in achieving our extraterrestrial scientific endeavors. The Rockets we launch will be branded, displaying the universal iconography that dominates our world.

Our team has been working around the clock to bring you our Rocket Factory.

We see the potential for NFTs to reshape the way art is produced and distributed. The Rocket Factory, and all of the NFTs it generates, are artworks. These artworks draw on the foundation of sculpture and painting Tom has made for over thirty years. We see no difference between this project and a Tom Sachs sculpture at MoMA. We are proud to announce Tom Sachs’ Genesis NFT collection.

Tom Sachs: Rocket Factory is a trans-dimensional manufacturing plant.

Our Rocket Factory uses NFTs to build new NFTs. We invite you to join our workforce.

A Rocket is composed of three Component NFTs: a Nose Cone, a Body, and a Tail Assembly. A Nose Cone, a Body, and a Tail Assembly may be combined to form a Completed Rocket NFT. The Component NFTs are burned, and a Completed Rocket NFT is minted.

Component NFTs can be claimed, bought + sold, and assembled through the Rocket Factory website using our custom-built Marketplace.

Our Rocket Factory has enough inventory to produce 1,000 Completed Rockets. That is 1,000 Nose Cones, 1,000 Bodies, and 1,000 Tail Assemblies. All 3,000 Components are branded with 1 of 30 unique Brands (with differing rarity). Select Rocket Component NFTs will be minted with a Sticker graphic. Component NFTs with Stickers are more rare and unique. 100 of the 3,000 Components will have Stickers. There are 10 Sticker types (with differing rarity).

Our Rocket Factory produces two types of Completed Rocket NFTs: Frankenrockets and Perfect Rockets. A Frankenrocket is a disparate clusterfuck of branding, composed of un-matching Component NFTs. A Perfect Rocket is singular in its branding, composed of three matching Component NFTs — total perfection. Every Completed Rocket NFT is given a unique name by Tom.

This is your opportunity to make an NFT your own. The Component NFTs will be claimed randomly, but how you combine them to mint a Completed Rocket is entirely up to you. We are putting the power in your hands. You, the community, will decide, out of 113,500+ potential combinations, which 1,000 Rockets the world needs. Build the Rocket you desire, the Rocket that defines you.

Frankenrockets and Perfect Rockets both have a Launch Option.

When the Launch Option is selected, a Physical Rocket sculpture is hand-made in the “meat-world”. The Physical Rocket is an exact replica of the Completed Rocket NFT. The Physical Rocket is primed for launch…and there is no going back.

Physical Rocket launches will take place across the US and Europe in the first months following the Rocket Factory opening. More continents to follow. Launch Windows and locations are announced in advance, and Physical Rocket owners will be invited to the launch events.

After launching the Physical Rocket, every attempt at recovery is made. The Physical Rocket is shipped to its owner in a custom display box. The Completed Rocket NFT is updated with metadata gathered from the launch. A video documenting the launch is linked to the Completed Rocket NFT.

The Completed Rocket NFT, its Physical Rocket twin (if recovered), and the video documenting the launch form a Holy Trinity. An NFT, A Physical Rocket, a video documenting the launch. An NFT, a Physical Rocket, and a video documenting the launch… Are you getting it? These are not 3 separate things. This is one. A Singular Trans-dimensional NFT, and it is yours to keep.

This is all accomplished in our Marketplace on the Rocket Factory Website. Launching Soon (Follow our Twitter and join our Discord for updates).

3,000 x Branded Rocket Component NFTs

1,000 Branded Nose Cone NFTs

1,000 Branded Body NFTs

1,000 Branded Tail Assembly NFTs

100 Component NFTs with a Sticker

30 Brands (differing rarity)

10 Sticker Types (differing rarity)

1,000 Potential Completed Rockets

113,500+ Potential Combinations(you do the math)

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” — Arthur C. Clark.

NASA’s Vertical Assembly Building houses the largest room on earth, it is where their rockets are assembled. A monumental piece of infrastructure that facilitates the production of a miracle. Our Rocket Factory required building our own megalithic structure — a custom Marketplace. This is our central hub for claiming, buying, selling, and minting Completed Rocket NFTs. The Marketplace offers unique tools for sorting inventory, availability, styles and attributes. Here are the mechanics of how our Marketplace functions.

We are releasing 70% of the inventory to the community. In the traditional art world, essentially 0% of art is available for the general public to claim, purchase, or own. It is an industry of hurdles, reckoning with gatekeepers and barriers to entry.

The Rocket Factory is focused on making “the best, for the most, for the least”.

This is a fair launch project. We’ve worked hard to avoid gas wars, and to keep the cost of claiming as low as possible. The Rocket Factory has no bonding curve. Claiming a Component NFT costs the same for everybody. The Component NFT you receive is randomly assigned, and there will never be more than 3,000 Components.

Rocket Component NFTs cost 0.15 ETH to claim (plus the price of rocket fuel, or what some of you may know as Gas).

We believe in this space. A project on this scale by a widely established contemporary artist from the traditional art world has not been done before. We are proud to introduce a fair launch on this scale and set the precedent.

Building a Rocket Factory has real costs… we bring this project to the world by distributing the remaining 30% to the people who built it.

Fairness and transparency is the guiding principle for this project, and all allocation of Rocket Component NFTs will be reflected in the blockchain for all to see — for all eternity.

The rarity of Rocket Component NFTs for both pools reflect the same rarity curve (pro-rata).

This 30% goes to:

Robert Rauschenberg tried, and failed, to pass a law for Artist Resale Royalty Rights — where artists could get a percentage of resales, or residuals.

Droit de suiteis French. It translates roughly to “fuck you, pay me.” Put more simply, it is a legal mandate in France guaranteeing artists a royalty when their work sells on the secondary market. French institutions and auction houses routinely skirt the law, conducting most business over the border. The artist doesn’t see a dime. For 35 years, California had a similar law. A judge found it unconstitutional in 2012. That was the end of that.

This decentralized world respects artists. Historically artists have seen the value of their work go up exponentially in the secondary market without the ability to share in any of that growth. Here artists get 10% as the industry standard of every sale.

Our royalty structure:

10% on the Rocket Factory Marketplace. Part of the reason we built our Marketplace is to save you the additional 2.5% Opensea charges. The choice is yours.

Can we get a round of applause for our Dev Team: NFT Studios! NFT Studios not only saved you a fortune on Gas fees, but they have gone to the moon and back to write efficient, elegant code, keeping the entire Rocket creation process on-chain.

Our future depends on durability and efficiency. We build things that last. Responsible technology is strong enough to integrate into new systems. We challenge the tyranny of planned obsolescence. This means choosing to do things the hard way — but do them right. This principle is as valid in building a Space Program, as it is in writing a single line of code.

Our smart contracts are custom tailored to accomplish the specific needs of our project and are powered by fairness and transparency. Aside from the images (which are hosted by IPFS), our entire project lives on-chain, and illuminates the structure of our Rocket Factory for all who are invested in it.

Token IDs are not sequential with respect to the order in which they are claimed at our drop. Token IDs are pre-assigned based on our rarity curve, and each Component NFT is essentially pre-minted. When a claim takes place on the Rocket Factory Marketplace, the Component NFT is randomly assigned to the claimer’s wallet. It is a blind draw. There is no conceivable way of knowing what Component NFT will be issued for a given claim. This was a decision we made to keep gas prices consistently low, and to avoid gas wars on the day of launch. This makes the transaction as inexpensive, and fair, as possible. It gives everyone in line an equal shot.

Token IDs for Completed Rockets are issued sequentially in the order they are assembled and minted. Each Component NFT’s metadata is preserved within the Completed Rocket NFT. There is immense variety in the potential composition of each Rocket. The number of brand combinations alone exceeds the total inventory by a factor greater than 100:1. The choice is yours.

Unfair drop mechanics and purchasing dynamics frequently squeeze early adopters and fervent community supporters out of projects. The Rocket Factory team wants to avoid this and ensure the community can get involved. Multiple mechanisms will be implemented for the initial Component NFT drop to ensure that it is fair and transparent. Updates about how to claim Component NFTs and the mechanics of our drop will be available in the lead up to launch.

We will launch a Commemorative NFT for early adopters to claim for free and try out our Marketplace ahead of the Component NFT drop. This NFT is proof that you have been around since the beginning. We also want this to be a way for individuals who haven’t tested the crypto waters before to have a low-risk opportunity to learn how to operate in the ecosystem. More details on this to come.

The Rocket Factory will announce launch window dates ahead of time. Each launch will have a set number of slots. Assembled Rocket holders who select the Launch Option will have the ability to sign up for a slot on the Rocket Factory Website.

A Rocket Launch will require a fixed 0.1 ETH charge. A Physical Rocket is a hand-made work of art that we build, launch, recover and ship to you. Even if your Physical Rocket is not recovered we will still send you something… the 0.1 ETH charge offsets only a fraction of our costs, but allows our Physical Rocket Factory to function.

Certain Physical Rockets will be eligible for a payload bonus. This can be a fuel resupply mission (gasoline cargo), or returning a payload of ETH from an interplanetary mining mission, or something classified we aren’t authorized to reveal yet. More details to come.

Unlock membership to the “Rocket League” by owning a Completed Rocket NFT or Component NFT. Membership benefits will include: special access to Factory Uniforms, invitations to launches and events (both physical and digital), among other surprises. We are also exploring the metaverse for a spot to build The Rocket Factory Headquarters, with special access clearance for League Members.

We will be continually adding to the membership benefits as the project rolls out. Stay up to date by following us on Twitter and joining our Discord.

Tom Sachs (b. 1966) is an American contemporary artist, and self-proclaimed “handyman” working in New York City. Sachs’ genre defying mixed media sculptures, often recreations of modern icons using everyday materials, show all of the work that goes into producing an object — a reversal of modernization’s trend towards products with cleaner, simpler, and more perfect edges. Sachs’s sculptures are conspicuously handmade; lovingly cobbled together from plywood, resin, steel, and ceramic. The scars and imperfections in the sculptures tell the story of how it came into being and remove it from the realm of miraculous conception. His studio team functions like a teaching hospital, or cult, that worships plywood and an ethos of transparency.

He has done major collaborations with brands like Nike, which have realized a number of innovative products and U.S. utility patents. Major art exhibitions include the Space Program, a demonstration of all that is necessary for survival, scientific exploration, resource harvesting, and colonization in extraterrestrial environments. His works are held in museum collections around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art — New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou — Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art — New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst — Oslo, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

www.tomsachs.org

www.tenbullets.com

NFT Studios is a holding of companies sharing one clear mission: Build the Metaverse one block at a time, developing products, tools, and technologies to enable the NFT space to grow and thrive.

NFT Studios has a broad portfolio of companies including CryptoMotors, PixelChain, Voxel Architects, and 0xSuite. Altogether, these companies aim to provide the digital space with innovative, high-quality tools, services, dapps, web platforms, video games, and assets.

By leveraging the Ethereum blockchain technology, NFT Studios empowers startups, communities, and users to kickstart their own business, build a strong presence in the Metaverse, create their own products, explore their creativity, and engage in new and fascinating digital experiences.

broken thread is a team bridging the digital and physical worlds through NFTs. Our mission is to contribute to the explosive growth in NFTs in an authentic and meaningful way by bringing talented artists from the traditional art world into this new medium through thoughtful projects, educating and converting their dedicated following along the way. We believe that the digital and physical worlds are highly complementary, and our projects look to highlight this in creative ways.