ARKYD space telescope Kickstarter passes $1M goal

The Planetary Resources Kickstarter campaign for the ARKYD public access space telescope surpassed the $1,000,000 goal today. At the moment, they have 11,356 backers, with $1,003,126 pledged and 11 days to go.

Just yesterday (see post  here) they had $916,582 after about 20 days of fundraising. It was starting to look like the pledges had leveled off and they might have trouble reaching $1M. When I saw the total this evening, I first thought that a single person might have given them a boost but the number of backers had also jumped from about 100 per day to over 700 today as seen in the charts at ARKYD – Kicktraq.

They also introduced new Add-ons and a new mystery stretch goal for $1.5M:

New $1.5M Mystery Stretch Goal Revealed!
When we reach $1.5 Million in pledges, every selfie pledge or higher will receive an exclusive digital Beta-Selfie, taken next year during the crucial integration phase of spacecraft build! Become a part of the build and catch a glimpse of our clean-room squad in action!

Update: Here is an update and video from PR:

Many of you have just crowdfunded a space telescope, bringing space within reach for everyone!  You know who you are – THANK YOU!!!  We passed our $1M campaign funding goal today and are now on the way to our $2M stretch goal of searching for Alien Planets.  Help us get there.

We passed 11,000 backers while I was live on-air with Leo at Twit.tv / Triangulation, and thanks to The Oatmeal’s pledge and fan support, we’re accelerating towards an exciting final 10 days of the campaign!

Time is running out to join the community that is democratizing space exploration and sharing it with the world.  Make your pledge!  This is only the start of something REALLY BIG.

There’s a ton of new stuff over on our Kickstarter page, including live events next week with Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute), Seth Green and Hank Green, Richard Garriott (Lord British) and Jon Mavor (Planetary Annihilation), add-on pledge levels, new stretch goals, and our main Kickstarter video translated into more than a dozen languages, including Klingon.

My space art

I have been drawing as a hobby since I was a graduate student long, long ago. I finally submitted some of my artwork to a show in Washington D.C. at the urging of a friend.  Luckily they accepted two of my color pencil still life works. The opening is on June 25th. See the invite below.

The show prompted me to create a website to display more of my work. In addition to my still lifes,  I have posted a gallery of my NewSpace inspired pieces like this one:

SpaceX_CRS1_606x500

Hope you enjoy my space art show as well as my other works.

Juried Show Announcement Card_800x505

“The Plundering of NASA: an Exposé” by Rick Boozer

Check out astrophysicist Rick Boozer‘s new book, The Plundering of NASA: an Exposé, which I read in draft form. It lays out the mess that NASA human spaceflight policy is in, how it got that way, and how to fix it.

At last, here is a book peering behind the veil of Congressional politics which force NASA to do the bidding of regional interests that cripple the nation’s capabilities in both exploring outer space and exploiting its enormous economic potential. Presenting the opinions of astronauts, prominent “rocket scientists” and space policy analysts while also revealing unpublicized studies conducted by NASA, industry and universities, The Plundering of NASA: An Exposé combines into one book many of the facts the major media have either ignored or not discovered. It relates how honest misconceptions, greed, and an outdated faction within NASA itself cause our nation to get less for its space agency tax dollars than it could and should.

Currently it is available as a Amazon ebook, and in paperback at Lulu.com, where there is a 20% discount until it becomes available in bookstores.

Rick will be on the SpaceVidCast program on July 6 to discuss the book.

The Rocket Company: Chapters 9-12

In the continuing serialization of the updated version of the book The Rocket Company by Patrick J. G. Stiennon and David M. Hoerr, with illustrations by Doug Birkholz.  This week you can obtain the following chapters of the book:

Download these within the next week. Only four chapters will be available at any one time.

See also the electronic version of the updated book is available at  The Rocket Company eBook by Patrick Stiennon, David Hoerr, Peter Diamandis, Doug Birkhol: Kindle Store/Amazon.com.

Everyone can participate in space