{"id":19374,"date":"2016-05-27T00:07:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T16:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-selfie-project-canceled-planetary-resources-offers-kickstarter-refunds\/"},"modified":"2016-05-27T00:07:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T16:07:28","slug":"space-selfie-project-canceled-planetary-resources-offers-kickstarter-refunds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-selfie-project-canceled-planetary-resources-offers-kickstarter-refunds\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Space selfie\u2019 project canceled: Planetary Resources offers Kickstarter refunds"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_251924\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-251924\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-251924\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd2-630x461.jpg\" alt=\"Space selfie\" width=\"630\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd2-630x461.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd2-768x562.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/160525-arkyd2.jpg 887w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-251924\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows how an Arkyd 100 space telescope would have taken a \u201cspace selfie\u201d from orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources via Kickstarter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>REDMOND, Wash.<\/strong> \u2013 Three years ago, Planetary Resources raised more than $1.5 million on Kickstarter to build a space telescope that would let users snap selfies&nbsp;from orbit. Today, the company says it can\u2019t follow through on the project&nbsp;\u2013 and is offering full refunds to its 17,614 backers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a decision that we make with a heavy heart,\u201d Chris Lewicki, president and CEO of Planetary Resources, told GeekWire during a visit to the company\u2019s Redmond headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Lewicki said the support received during the Kickstarter campaign exceeded their wildest expectations, but it wasn\u2019t enough to fund everything that needed to be done to turn the promised system into reality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe evaluated a lot of different opportunities with businesses, with educational institutions, with different outlets,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we didn\u2019t find, since the campaign closed a few years ago, was the follow-on interest to take it from a project and scale it into a fully funded mission. \u2026 We\u2019re going to wind down the project and bring it to a close.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Planetary Resources Chris Lewicki addresses Kickstarter supporters\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xJdqg7U4lqs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The project would have set aside an Arkyd 100 space telescope for public use. Users would have been given opportunities to take pictures of targets on Earth or celestial objects (other than the sun).<\/p>\n<p>There was also supposed to be a built-in display screen that could show a video or still image in a spacecraft&nbsp;camera\u2019s field of&nbsp;view. For $25, Kickstarter backers could have the telescope take a picture of Earth with their own picture in the foreground&nbsp;\u2013 hence the term \u201cspace selfie.\u201d More than 7,200 people signed up for that option.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-seven backers went for a $10,000 package that included tickets to the telescope\u2019s launch and lots of other goodies.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Exclusive<\/strong>: Planetary Resources focuses on Earth observation with $21M in new funding<\/h4>\n<p>Planetary Resources has readied two Arkyd 6 prototype spacecraft for launch in the coming months, and it\u2019s working on a constellation of Arkyd 100 telescopes that should go into orbit in the 2018-2019 time frame. But those telescopes are designed for thermal infrared and hyperspectral Earth observation, not for space selfies.<\/p>\n<p>Kickstarter spokesman David Gallagher told GeekWire that there have been a few cases of campaigns where backers were given refunds \u2013 including last year\u2019s&nbsp;case involving CastAR, a company that decided to postpone shipments of its augmented-reality glasses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is something that we encourage,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cBy its nature, our system is one where some projects will fail, and we try to be very upfront about that. \u2026 We\u2019re glad that they\u2019re responding in a really responsible way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Planetary Resources said it would send each backer an email with instructions for receiving a refund.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the space selfies are no-go, Planetary Resources did follow through on one of the Kickstarter campaign\u2019s stretch goals: the creation of software that would help users hunt for asteroids. The Asteroid Data Hunter app was developed in cooperation with NASA and other partners.<\/p>\n<p>Another citizen-science&nbsp;project, Asteroid Zoo, was created in partnership with Zooniverse but is currently on hiatus. Oxford astronomer Chris Lintott, the principal investigator for Zooniverse, said the team behind Asteroid Zoo&nbsp;is&nbsp;working on the data.<\/p>\n<p><em>Update for 9:45 a.m. PT May 26: Thanks to Chris Lintott for helping us clarify the status of Asteroid Zoo.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows how an Arkyd 100 space telescope would have taken a \u201cspace selfie\u201d from orbit. (Credit: Planetary Resources via Kickstarter) REDMOND, Wash. \u2013 Three years ago, Planetary Resources raised more than $1.5 million on Kickstarter to build a space telescope that would let users snap selfies&nbsp;from orbit. Today, the company says it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5301,5555,4820],"class_list":["post-19374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-arkyd","tag-kickstarter","tag-planetary-resources"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}