Planetary Resources, a company based in Bellevue, decided to bridge the gap between the planet and the cosmos with the world’s first crowd-funded, publicly-accessible telescope. Their Kickstarter campaign recently raised over $1.5 million from 17,614 people in just 33 days.Much like a PBS telethon, donors at certain levels got kick-backs from contributing to the cause. Only instead of the box set of “Anne of Green Gables,” people have the opportunity to put a “selfie" in space or donate their telescope time to educational institutions.
A video on their fundraising page lays out the plan. A team of engineers, who have built every US lander sent to Mars in the last 15 years, is making a small, technologically advanced space telescope to study asteroids and other space wonders. As Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer states it, “We know how to put stuff into space.”
[asset-images[{"caption": "KUOW host Bill Radke demonstrates the art of the selfie.", "fid": "4891", "style": "card_280", "uri": "public://201307/Bill-Radke.JPG", "attribution": "Credit KUOW Photo/Bill Radke"}]]Personalities like Bill Nye and Richard Branson are getting behind the project, the latter of which has recently joined Planetary Resources as a core investor.
The Kickstarter campaign has officially closed as a success, but Planetary Resources has extended the time period where the public can make a pledge and get their very own space selfie.
