ARKYD Space Telescope: I Pledged Money To My First Crowd Funding Campaign!

So in recent months I have amped up my obsession with space. When I was kid we had all the awesome coffee table astronomy books that got us interested in space and science. I can't remember all the titles, but Our Universe is one that stands out in my mind. My dad always made sure we had interesting and educational books to read, something I am forever thankful for.

My renewed interest in space was triggered when the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars last August, and kicked into high gear as I followed all of Commander Hadfield's awesomeness in space. I'm following many NASA and science related Twitter feeds, and while surfing Twitter last week I learned about a Kickstarter campaign to crowd fund a space telescope that can be accessed by the people who fund it. People can also donate their telescope access to schools. How cool is that?

This is the ARKYD Kickstarter campaign video with details about the project:



Check out the Kickstarter Campaign Page here: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone by Planetary Resources. At time of this posting the campaign had already raised close to $800,000 of their $1,000,000 funding goal.

Bad Astronomer wrote a great description of the telescope and the campaign if you want a more detailed version of what it is all about.

I kicked in $25 which allows me to use the telescope to get a selfie from space. When prompted, I will upload a photo that will be displayed on a screen on the telescope, and then a camera on the telescope will take a picture of my picture with Earth in the background! I think that sounds so cool! I thought $25 sounded pretty cheap to get a photo of myself from space, so I donated! The photos aren't expected to be taken/delivered until August 2015, but I imagine it will be worth the wait. My major dilemma now is picking what photo to send to space. How will I choose?

Here are some examples of what a selfie from space could look like, as featured on the ARKYD Kickstarter page:

Illustrations by PRI

And here is a badly doctored version of what my selfie from space could look like if I submitted a photo of Gary:

Illustration by PRI (featuring Gary selfie)

This was my first time pledging money to a crowd funding campaign. It was really easy to do (Kickstarter just connects to your Amazon account) and I have already gotten three updates about the project so I actually feel involved. It has been a really neat experience so far with much more to come.