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Space Scientists Looking To Crowd-Fund Planetary Exploration
The Bad Astronomer writes "The White House budget for NASA in 2013 is bleak, with big cuts in many areas. None is worse hit than planetary exploration, which got slammed with a 20% reduction. Several top-notch space scientists have taken matters into their own hands, looking to create a privately-funded alternative for space exploration. Called Uwingu — Swahili for 'sky' — they're hoping to get seed money to create a program which can generate millions in donations to explore our solar system. Astronomer Pamela Gay has more info at her blog, Star Stryder."
Considering that SETI couldn't even raise $2 million a year, I'm thinking we need to offer more incentives on this one. A $1 billion donation gets you a nice tote bag. $2 billion gets you the mug.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
They'd better crowd-source it... send me to Mars already !
Isn't this what the stock market is good for? You know, funding an operation with lots of people in a fairly transparent way?
Only if I recieve a souvenir from another planet.
But then again, if everyone was to demand a souvenir in return, it might be easier if NASA became a business that sold space souvenirs.
So what do I get for contributing to their Kickstarter?
Planetory exploration, our eyes where we can't reach yet, here's a great piece on the rover Opportunity, who's still collecting valuable data that is no doubt shaping the future of planetory exploration as we know it. http://www.frequency.com/video/sciencecasts-first-extraterrestrial/53770551/-/4-196655 Little guy still chugging away. :)
I feel the returns on these explorations will pay out big dividends years down the road, but not if they don't get the funding. I think privatization will be a great way to get the money needed as the commercial potential of these future space businesses could be an enormous jackpot, with the right technology and the right deal. I'm not sure how governments don't see that potential.
Find a better and more memorable name. Seriously, names are important. They need to be memorable, easy to spell and hopefully represent what you do. This name, I've already forgotten and have no clue how to spell had I simply heard it. You can't go to the moon (or stars) on a rocketship that nobody can spell let alone fund.
Make it tax deductible like religious organizations of course...
Piss their pants in excitement. Dismantle the public sphere, sell it at a loss, use it for private industry, sell it back to the public at a profit.
So if every drinker in these two countries countries were to donate a single days spending on spirits to this program they would raise almost $330 million dollars.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Just curious. If someone at NASA put out some requirements for a small subsystem how many people here would work on helping develop it in their spare time? I've tried to make this point. There are some things that can be crowd sourced. I think the public could get involved if the ITAR stuff could be avoided.
For example let's say a bracket was needed to hold a sensor. NASA could post the mass, size and Interface for the sensor and list the shock and vib requirements. Then let whoever wants to submit a design with analysis. Then the responsible engineer could review them and pick a design.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Kickstarter
In NZ, we've got the rescue helicopter, funded by a local bank (and painted in their colours, with their name on the side, and always referred to as the rescue helicopter. The bank recently asked for funds, saying that even $20 would get them a clutter-pin, or some such. I suspect the thing will be the same colour, same name though.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
"Uwingu" sounds like the ookings of a gorilla resting on his haunches and chewing on a grub in the midst of third-world filth. It evokes action of a primate Uwinging / from tree to tree / but only in between / poo flinging
You are a disgusting, disgraceful, half-educated racist motherfucker. Just thought you should know.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It's not racist if it's fact, fool. You're so buried in politically correct stupidity you're no longer able to tell the difference between an advanced civilization and the users of the Bantu languages, who aren't exactly the poster children for space exploration, or technology, or even any kind of advanced thinking at all.
They at least might have gone for the Arabic that Swahili derives from -- the Arabs at least have a stake in modern technology, what with algebra (actually al-jebr) and so forth.
But of course that's not politically correct on the other side of the coin.
Gee, how about calling it "Donations for Space Exploration"?
Nah. Just not politically inebriated enough for the clueless hordes.
The whole thing was fine until the "Uwingu" name, and its Swahili origin
It's getting tiresome to read so many things in the same foreign language - as if Swahili is the only legitimate foreign language in this world
How about the Persian language? How about the Vietnamese language? How about the Tahitian language?
To me, the use of yet-another-Swahili-word shows the lack of imagination, and/or the laziness therewith, of those 'scientists' in charge
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
lol this thread is fiull a funny....i havent stopped laughing
The specific goals I'd like funded are orbiters to Uranus and Neptune. Those seem far and away the most obvious, valuable, and doable projects no one has yet tried.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I'm fine with the idea of private commercialization of space by companies that have start-up capital to do it, but do we really have to abandon NASA to the budget-cut wolves in favor of private companies that require crowd-funding? NASA is pretty ramped up already; why don't we just crowd-fund NASA?
Perhaps they meant "mbingu" which roughly translates to "heaven" or "wingu" which means "cloud". There is no direct Swahili translation for "sky" as far as I know. They should have done a quick check on any of the online Swahili dictionaries such as http://kamusi.org/ or http://www.kamusi.co.tz/ before erroneously naming their project.
Tiny light grey text on white. You need a telescope to read her blog.
Umuga mbingo wing'tu hili. Translates to "sucker of goat testicles". Which is what I usually say to crowd sourcing.
"we need 75.000 for an unspecified marketing campaign for an unspecified project" doesn't sound too inviting to me - how about "we need at least one million people to give us at least 100$ a year over the next ten years to accomplish these awesome goals (insert planned projects here)". "give us 1$ on kickstarter to set up the big money-collecting and to show your interest" (and for your 100$-1000$ / year you get your name on a plaque on the moon, beautiful HD-Video Footage of everyting and a share of the company (which you might exchange to a space-ticket in the future)
Their ideas are so elegant that I can’t believe they haven’t already been done, and because it would take about a week for someone with very modest venture capitol (that part they are missing) to implement the idea well This is where the campaign is asking for your trust and your donations to allow us to setup a new model for funding space, but we can’t give you the details, because if we do the idea is going to get built by someone else and the profit will go somewhere other than to researchers.
This is kind of asking us to take a lot on faith. "Send us your money so that we can do some secret thing that's going to be great. Oh, and I really need money to cover my staff's salary." You're not going to find a more passionate advocate for space exploration than me, but even I feel leery about contributing given the opacity of the enterprise.
My second thought is, if you do successfully create some quasi-third-option (not public, not private) enterprise to do actual planetary exploration, it is by definition competitive with NASA. Immediately, immediately, Ron Paul and all the strict constitutionalists and tea partiers and deficit hawks are going to point to Uwingu and say "Hey, we don't need a federal agency for that! Look, private enterprise is doing it!" It would be just another, better reason to kill NASA by budget cuts.
Uh... seeing as the last budget that was passed out of the Senate was in 2009 (800 days ago) and the Democrats certainly don't want a budget vote on record before the November elections-- why bother fretting over "planned cuts"?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/just-reminder-its-been-800-days-senate-passed-budget_576441.html
You've got that the wrong way around. It's obviously much more important to provide tax relief and governmental donations for a few people who made bad choices and lost billions, but it's not at all important to look after the people who paid for those donations or lost their jobs as a result of those previously mentioned poor choices.
This uwingu project only talks about a project but doesn't say what it is. I googled 'uwingu' and found multiple versions of their trademark application which says that "UWINGU is providing a website featuring online technology that enables users to name both features on the surfaces of bodies in the solar system and solar system bodies themselves." Isn't that already the responsibility of the IAU? Are they working with the IAU?