June 06, 2013
If Kickstarter has the power to raise bucks for wearable
instruments, a
movie based on a canceled TV series, and countless mobile apps, can it
crowdfund a space
telescope?
Planetary
Resources thinks so. The asteroid-mining company is asking for $1 million
to help “launch the telescope, fund the creation of [a] public interface, cover
the fulfillment costs for all of the products and services listed in the pledge
levels, and fund [an] immersive educational curriculum for students everywhere.”
Extra contributions will be used “for more access to classrooms, museums and
science centers, and additional use by individual Kickstarter backers.”
With several weeks to go, the telescope is three-quarters of the
way toward its goal. No surprise, really -- the thank-you gifts are neat. For
$25, a donor gets “Your Face in Space” -- an image of his choosing “to display
on the [telescope] … with the Earth in the background.” Two hundred dollars confers
the title of “private astronomer,” with the ability to “point the telescope at
any celestial object” and snap a photo. Ten grand offers perhaps the coolest
perk -- your name assigned to a newly discovered asteroid.
It all sounds a little out there, so to speak, but Planetary
Resources isn’t a motley collection of spazzy dreamers. It has the financial backing
of Ross Perot, Jr., Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and construction
giant Bechtel. Its co-founders are “NewSpace” entrepreneurs Peter
Diamandis and Eric Anderson. Its chairman and CTO is Charles Simonyi, a former
Microsoft guru and two-time space tourist. (Kook-left
director James Cameron is an “advisor,” but don’t hold that against the
company.)
In announcing the crowdfunding campaign, Diamandis said, “In the
last 50 years, space exploration has been led by national governmental agencies
with their own set of priorities; and now we’re changing the nature of
exploration. We’re developing the most advanced space technology ever made
available to the public. Let’s explore the cosmos together!”
If clear-eyed space enthusiasts know anything, it’s that NASA doesn’t like to share. That’s why the bureaucracy’s scientists can’t be
thrilled about Planetary Resources’s project. Another threat: Uwingu. Last summer,
the startup declared that it would conduct a “series of public-engagement
projects” to “generate funding for space exploration, research, and education
efforts around the world.”
“Never before,” Uwingo observes, “has there been any significant
source of non-governmental funds for space research and education.”
Headed by Alan Stern, the former boss of all NASA space science,
Uwingu has already assisted the SETI Institute’s Allen
Telescope Array, “which searches for signs of intelligent civilizations in
the universe.” In May, the LLC announced a “planet adoption campaign to give
the public a chance to adopt and name almost any of the known exoplanets in
astronomical databases.”
As a 2011 National Research Council report noted, in planetary science
alone, NASA’s recent discoveries have been extraordinary. There is more water
than previously thought on Earth’s moon. Mars has “extensive deposits” of
“near-surface ice.” Titan’s
methane cycle resembles Earth’s water cycle. Enceladus emits a
plume of ice particles. Mercury has a liquid core. The Kuiper belt “includes many
objects as large as or larger than Pluto and, intriguingly, a large proportion
of binary and multi-object systems.”
At just over $5 billion in the White House’s FY 2014 budget,
space science represents nearly 28 percent of proposed NASA spending. The agency’s
knee-jerk supporters aver that its astronomers, astrophysicists, and
astrobiologists are worth the money. But -- and you knew this was coming -- a
nation facing $17
trillion in debt, and hundreds of trillions of dollars in long-term
liabilities, has to start cutting costs. With voters enamored of nationalized
pensions and a half-nationalized healthcare “system,” fiscal reality will
need to strike at hundreds of smaller line items, from “legal services” to
bicycle paths, passenger trains to “investments” in “green” power.
Spurred by visionary companies, manned spaceflight is shifting,
at long last, toward commercialization. Space science could be the next escapee
from the government ghetto. Planetary Resources seeks to orbit a telescope “both
funded and directed by everyday folks who are passionate about space technology
and the thrill of discovery.” Uwingu is comprised of “men and women who’ve
decided to turn our profits into understanding of our universe.” Others are
sure to follow.
It’s possible -- likely, even -- that a revenue model based on
individual donors, charitable organizations, and for-profit entities will
provide space scientists with more
resources than NASA’s contentious appropriations process. In time, the people
who earn their livings studying the heavens may come to appreciate coercion- and politics-free
funding.
D. Dowd Muska (www.dowdmuska.com) writes about government, economics, and technology. Follow him on Twitter @dowdmuska.
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