Crowdfunding in Space
Space Crowdfunding: What’s the Secret?, Winners and losers among the space start-ups, Air and Space
“I had guys clambering over the [radio antenna] dish in Arecibo [Puerto Rico], hanging hardware while people were still giving money, and people were saying, ‘This is great!’ ” he says. “I was live-tweeting everything we did. Every geeky expression that happened in the control room I threw out there, and people were telling me they got in trouble for not going to work, or skipping class, sitting on the subway reading it on their phone.” “The bulk of the people that give you money don’t quite even understand exactly what you’re going to do,” says Cowing. But success comes “if you tell a compelling story, couch this in a way that there’s adventure involved, but also a payback opportunity that people feel is important, that there’s something to be learned.”
“if you tell a compelling story, couch this in a way that there’s adventure involved, but also a payback opportunity that people feel is important, that there’s something to be learned.”
Bit it’s SPACE, Keith! Space is magical to many of Earth’s denizens, including this one. We dream of space, of space travel, of living in space and on the moon and Mars and Ganymede, for Pete’s sake. We haunt NASAWatch and Centauri Dreams to feed the need. The reality of those dreams is so far away, so beyond my life time that projects like yours let us live a vicarious dream.
I get some space-related projects fail. Golden Spike wasn’t realistic; everybody knows how much it takes to go to the moon (we all agree that’s it’s a big pile of money, at least). You guys sought enough for the entire project.
And as I have pointed out in other places, the players really matter. You and Dennis are known quantities with a track record. We’ve seen you on Everest and we’ve seen those lovely moon pix. It’s a trust issue.
You aren’t wrong aboutt the nature of the fund-raising campaign. Of course all of those elements are sine non qua. But it’s the trustability of the players that makes the difference.