Check this out! Kickstarter has a Publicly Operated Space Telescope Project!

[rodion_herrera]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0

[GJames]

That is pretty neat, soon they'll have loads of those little telescopes up there!

EDIT: The numbers just keep on going up as I reload the page...

[Kryten]

At least three people have donated $10,000+ each!

I like how they're bigging up how incredibly fast it'll be going. As if that's not shared by every paint chip and lost wrench in orbit...

[GJames]

At least three people have donated $10,000+ each!

I like how they're bigging up how incredibly fast it'll be going. As if that's not shared by every paint chip and lost wrench in orbit...

They're trying to sell it to the public, who don't necessarily know that, shhh...

[Canopus]

I laughed at "Hank Green Internet Personality"

[NannerManCan]

Already up to $163K and the numbers just keep going up! Btw if you guys didn't know this is by Planetary resources who want to mine asteroids for profit. These will be just the first step. Also those telescope are pretty small and light! 15 kilograms! (33lb), and it can detect as faint as magnitude 19!

Edit: $442k and rising!

Edited May 30, 2013 by NannerManCan

[karolus10]

This is idea: give us 5 grands and we name one of our tiny space telescopes after You... nah.

[Kryten]

Apparently twenty people have gone for exactly that...

[Stochasty]

The part I'd be interested in, assuming they were planning to design in such capability, would be optical interferometry once they a bunch of these up into orbit. The idea would be to use destructive interference to block the light from nearby stars in hopes of catching direct images of any planets that might be circling them. This was the plan behind the old NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder concept.

That said, with such small telescopes all of which would be free orbiting, I suspect that that capability might be too difficult to add in; too hard to get sufficiently precise measurements. Of course, if they could pull it off, the potential resolution offered by such capability would likely help a lot for their prospecting missions, so they might be interested in it for its own sake.

[karolus10]

This telescope maybe aren't very capable, but is small enough to "hitch hike" with other payloads launched into orbit.