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Commercialization

Planetary Resources Wants to Hunt for Alien Planets

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 11, 2013
Filed under

Planetary Resources Needs YOUR Help to Hunt for Alien Planets, Planetary Resources
“Alien planets are out there and Planetary Resources needs your help to find them! That’s right, the same high-powered telescope technology being used by Planetary Resources to identify near-Earth asteroids can also be used to hunt for what scientists call extrasolar planets or “exoplanets” – which are very much alien worlds. For the first-time ever, this capability will be placed directly into the hands of students, researchers and citizen scientists.”
Marc’s note: For the last few days the Planetary Resources Kickstarter campaign appears to have stalled.With 19 days to go they’re $145K short of their goal. And with Kickstarter, it’s all or nothing. You reach your goal, you get the funds, you don’t, you get nothing. Now to encourage that next wave of donors Planetary Resources has sent out an email blast saying if we make it to $2 million we’ll “enhance” ARKYD to hunt for Exoplanets.
With Kepler costing approximately around $600 million for its lifecyle, the ARKYD is quite a deal though they are clear to say they won’t rival Kepler. They plan on adding “exoplanet transit detection capability by enhancing the telescope’s stability systems and dedicating time to monitor candidate star systems.” Among the many questions is how good a detector could ARKYD be. Also, how does hunting for Exoplanets fit into the companies mission statement? Sure it’s E/PO, but is it just a gimmick to get over the initial E/PO funding goal?

“Planetary Resources recently launched a campaign on Kickstarter for the ARKYD – the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope accessible to the public. In only 13 days, the company has already reached well over 85 percent of its original US$1 million goal. Today, the company is announcing that if the total amount pledged exceeds US$2 million in the 19 days remaining in the campaign, it will invest the additional funds to enhance the ARKYD space telescope technology to enable it to search for alien planets!”

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

6 responses to “Planetary Resources Wants to Hunt for Alien Planets”

  1. Steve Whitfield says:
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    but is it just a gimmick to get over the initial E/PO funding goal?

    Perhaps it’s a gimmick, but I figure who cares if it does the jobs of a) reaching the Kickstarter threshold and b) drawing more of the public, especially young people, into getting involved.

    PR seems to be determined to see this through, which I find encouraging. And even if they don’t make their Kickstarter goal, the number of people who have responded I also find encouraging, and it makes me wonder: is this a reinvigorated public interest, or was it there all along simply waiting for opportunities to get involved.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      “Perhaps it’s a gimmick, but I figure who cares if it does the jobs of a)
      reaching the Kickstarter threshold and b) drawing more of the public,
      especially young people, into getting involved.”

      The problem is that if it’s just a gimmick and it doesn’t actually accomplish anything, many of those young people who get involved might get permanently alienated when they find out.

      My opinion is that misrepresenting the truth in any way in order to get people involved is always counterproductive in the long run.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Agreed, that’s why I said IF it does the jobs, which would make their actual intent irrelevant.

        I think PR is sincere, though, given that their initial asteroid project is something I see as a logical development program, not a business that expects to earn revenues, let alone profits, any time soon. I’m actually encouraged by how well PR has been accepted. As little as a decade ago they probably would have been laughed right out of the news (except for late night TV monologues).

  2. dbooker says:
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    If this is such a bargain then why doesn’t NASA schedule a boondoggle conference for $2M (call IRS for details) and funnel the money to Planetary Resources?

  3. brian penn says:
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    A few of us tried the exact same thing in August-September 2011 on Kickstarter. Here’s the URL:

    http://www.kickstarter.com/….

    We were asking for about $300K. Maybe we didn’t get the press that Arkyd gets. Their web video is certainly much more impressive than the one we put together. I wish them luck.

    • brian penn says:
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      Actually, it’s closer to two-years ago when we tried the Kickstarter approach. It was August-September, 2011.