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ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

kickstarter.com

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Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#11

Post by trevoro »

lutorm wrote: post #6

This seems mostly to be a PR gimmick. While it seems like a cool thing to do "just because we can", there is no compelling advantage to putting a 200mm telescope in space. You don't get much sharper images by being in space with such a small aperture. And launching a space telescope for people to take pictures of themselves... I don't even know where to start.

Honest question: Is it possible that they're not worried about sharper images of distant objects insomuch as being able to survey much larger portions of the sky with a large array of satellites?

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#12

Post by ramidarigaz »

mariusz79 wrote: post #7
zacharycohn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm at the launch event and helped put this project together. They're not doing this for the Kickstarter money. Even though they're fundraising for the project, they're already putting in more than they could ever hope to raise on Kickstarter. This project is adjacent to their core mission of Asteroid Mining, this is to prove interest that the public is interested in this sort of project, and to give the…

Still the question remains - why risk bad pr if this doesn't work. and why not concentrate on building the telescope first and proving that they can do it before asking for money? At this point it looks like they are trying to run "your picture in space" business, not asteroid mining.

I think they're pushing the "picture in space" as a sort of hook to gather public interest. Large scale public interest in their projects has the potential to bring in larger funding from entities that might otherwise not be interested.

Personally I think this is an excellent idea. The picture in space is a great little incentive to get people to take a closer look at the project.

Of course, there is the risk of failure and the bad PR that goes with it. That said, the list of endorsements they have is pretty impressive, and pushing the idea that a first grader could in theory direct the satellite to take a picture of his or her choice could give them a huge boost in interest.

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#13

Post by mariusz79 »

ramidarigaz wrote: post #12
mariusz79 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still the question remains - why risk bad pr if this doesn't work. and why not concentrate on building the telescope first and proving that they can do it before asking for money? At this point it looks like they are trying to run "your picture in space" business, not asteroid mining.

I think they're pushing the "picture in space" as a sort of hook to gather public interest. Large scale public interest in their projects has the potential to bring in larger funding from entities that might otherwise not be interested. Personally I think this is an excellent idea. The picture in space is a great little incentive to get people to take a closer look at the project. Of course, there is the risk of fail…

Well people may be excited about them getting already to 100k. Problem is 50% of that money comes from people who spend 1k or more - three of them spend 10k each. So I don't see potential for a failed Kickstarter campaign which would be a disaster for them

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#14

Post by a-nikolaev »

zacharycohn wrote: post #8
lutorm wrote: post #6

This seems mostly to be a PR gimmick. While it seems like a cool thing to do "just because we can", there is no compelling advantage to putting a 200mm telescope in space. You don't get much sharper images by being in space with such a small aperture. And launching a space telescope for people to take pictures of themselves... I don't even know where to start.

The compelling advantage is that they're making it available to the public to use.

If you add up the total time the telescope will be available to the public in minutes (please, correct me if I'm wrong) you get:

30 * 1000 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 10 * 30 * 100 + 25 * 30 * 50 + 25 * 30 * 50 = 225000 minutes = 156.25 days

This is not really a lot. The remaining time will be used by Planetary Resources. There is no way for public to continue using the telescope after that.

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#15

Post by nattybumppo »

lutorm wrote: post #6

This seems mostly to be a PR gimmick. While it seems like a cool thing to do "just because we can", there is no compelling advantage to putting a 200mm telescope in space. You don't get much sharper images by being in space with such a small aperture. And launching a space telescope for people to take pictures of themselves... I don't even know where to start.

I asked an astronomer friend of mine to look at the specs and got a small list of advantages:

-No atmosphere. Seeing would still be a considerable factor; getting 1 arcsecond resolution on Earth is not easy.

-No clouds

-Ability to focus on the same object for an extended exposure

-Infrared

-Can look north and south

There are a lot of advantages to this, even with their aperture size.

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#16

Post by mariusz79 »

ramidarigaz wrote: post #12
mariusz79 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still the question remains - why risk bad pr if this doesn't work. and why not concentrate on building the telescope first and proving that they can do it before asking for money? At this point it looks like they are trying to run "your picture in space" business, not asteroid mining.

I think they're pushing the "picture in space" as a sort of hook to gather public interest. Large scale public interest in their projects has the potential to bring in larger funding from entities that might otherwise not be interested. Personally I think this is an excellent idea. The picture in space is a great little incentive to get people to take a closer look at the project. Of course, there is the risk of fail…

they are suppose to be in asteroid mining business, that they said could bring trillions of dollars in profits. Why do they care about the public? There is something fishy going on here :)

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#18

Post by mariusz79 »

simondlr wrote: post #17
ramidarigaz wrote: post #2

Probably the most awesome Kickstarter I've ever backed. I'm so excited!!! Planetary Resources is a really cool company.

I'm unreasonably excited about it. For $25 I get to have a picture of my choosing taken in space!

At $25 per picture there must be 40 000 people as excited as you for this project to get funded. I just don't see how is that going to be even remotely possible.

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#19

Post by zacharycohn »

a-nikolaev wrote: post #14
zacharycohn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The compelling advantage is that they're making it available to the public to use.

If you add up the total time the telescope will be available to the public in minutes (please, correct me if I'm wrong) you get: 30 * 1000 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 10 * 30 * 100 + 25 * 30 * 50 + 25 * 30 * 50 = 225000 minutes = 156.25 days This is not really a lot. The remaining time will be used by Planetary Resources. There is no way for public to continue using the telescope after that.

Assuming this is where they stop, and they don't build a system for purchasing time later on...

Re: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone

#20

Post by VLM »

If this works, the amsat.org people should kickstart a fundraiser to get the legendary geosync sat up there. I'd be happy just with AO-40 redux, or a fleet of FM ez sats. Or maybe the mythical mars sat.
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