LONDON: A team of brave Brits has decided to create its way to the moon — using money gathered from the public via Kickstarter.
The rather ambitious plan wants to raise £500 million — that’s over $900 million — for the project via contributions made by the public. The planned mission, known as Lunar Mission One, will set a automatic investigate down on the moon’s surface in 10 years’ time.
In returns for donations, members of the public will be able to place photos, text and their DNA sequences in a time capsule, which will be buried beneath the moon’s surface. As well as, you know, kudos for helping a mission whose aim is to survey the Moon’s south pole, to assess whether humans could ever live there.
The first funding goal, which is supposed to cover the initial stages of research and development, is a more modest £600,000 ($1 million). That’s currently being raised on Kickstarter, where funding essentially buys digital storage in the time capsule: text will cost a few dollars, a photo tens of dollars, and a short video around $300. You can even send a sample of hair for $80. If that’s your thing.
“Rather than just watching the mission, people can be directly involved, not just through funding but helping to make key decisions such as the selection of the landing site or what should be included in the public archive,” explained David Iron, who’s leading the project, to the BBC. Whether the future of space travel is crowdfunded remains to be seen. Maybe it’s time to make a donation and see.
