The Starship Enterprise's own Data, actor Brent Spiner, was slated to be a special guest of Bellevue company Planetary Resources at an online event at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday as the company announced a project to make its technology available to the general public who contribute to a crowdfunding project.
In its first day, the company raised more than $300,000 toward its goal.
Originally posted at 10:03 a.m. Wednesday May 29. This post has been updated.
The company announced plans last year to explore and mine natural resources from near-earth asteroids, which could expand the possibilities to go boldly where no one has gone before.
Wednesday at 10 a.m., the asteroid mining company announced its campaign for the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope. The project will allow public access to space and place the most advanced exploration technology into the hands of students, scientists and a new generation of citizen explorers, according to a company press release.
The campaign is raising money through Kickstarter, and has a goal of $1 million, according to the company. The campaign ends June 30, according to a company press release.
Spiner is one of a group of high-profile supporters, who include Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson, actors Seth Green and Rob Picardo, Bill Nye the Science Guy, futurist Jason Silva, and MIT astrophysicist Dr. Sara Seager.
The public can watch the announcement on the Planetary Resources project at http://youtu.be/n9P3_68Lbxs
According to the company, pledge levels are:
- Your Face in Space – the #SpaceSelfie: For US$25, the team will upload an image of the campaign backer’s choice to display on the ARKYD, snap a photo of it with the Earth in the background, and transmit it to the backer. This space ‘photo booth’ allows anyone to take (or gift) a unique Space Selfie image that connects a personal moment with the cosmos in an unprecedented, yet tangible way.
- Explore the Cosmos: Higher pledge levels provide students, astronomers and researchers with access to the ARKYD main optic for detailed observations of the cosmos, galaxies, asteroids and our Solar System.
- Support Education Worldwide: At the highest levels, pledgers can offer the K-12 school, science center, university, or any interested group of their choice access to the ARKYD for use in interactive educational programming to strengthen STEM education worldwide. The full pledge list and ARKYD technical specifications can be found here.
Planetary Resources involves ex-NASA and ex-Microsoft employees, as well as a star-studded slate of investors and advisers, including Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron and Microsoft's former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, who has traveled to space as a tourist aboard Russian Soyuz crafts.
The company, founded by Eric Anderson and Peter H. Diamandis, is banking that the future of space exploration depends on being able to gather resources in space. The company's first missions will use robots, though human miners are expected to be employed in the future, officials said, and the company's first prospecting Arkyd-100 spacecraft could launch within two years, said Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer at a press conference last year.
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