Golden Spike Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign

Now Taking Donations Credit: Golden Spike Co.

Now Taking Donations
Credit: Golden Spike Co.

Golden Spike Company, the recently announced venture which is seeking to conduct commercial trips to the lunar surface using mostly established technology, has turned to one of the newer forms of fundraising to finance a 2013 P.R. campaign.  On Wednesday, the company began an Indiegogo campaign aimed at raising $240,000 for media outreach.   Donation options begin at $10, which is the Golden Spike Pioneer level (you get a signed thank you note)  all the way up to a $50,000 Exploration Angel level, for which each of the 5 slotted participants will receive an all expenses paid trip for two to the first Golden Spike launch, as well as each of the goodies accruing from previous levels.

While the campaign will no doubt confirm to some the apparent lack of deep pocket investors for a business plan whose startup costs would run into several billion dollars,  it may also provide a quick gauge of public interest, and function as a pilot program for larger campaigns to follow.  And there  is this, at least with crowdsourced funding you have direct control over where your money goes.    Even if you take some perverse satisfaction in the fact that some of your tax dollars (or Euros, or Rubles, or Yen, or whatever) go to fund your national space program, it is still a very, very distant affair, and even within that context, one cannot select the program funded.  In the U.S. some might have a preference (example puposes only) for ongoing mission analysis for Cassini as opposed to the Jabba the Hut all- consuming James Webb Space telescope, or Commercial Crew versus SLS. And if for some reason you want help fund a mission which is not part of your own national space program; say helping ESA and Russia launch Exo-Mars after NASA gave them the boot?,  well hang it up.

The odds may be long and the outcome in question, but at least the decisions are yours.  What’s one less trip to Starbucks for the future anyway? There are 70 days remaining in the Golden Spike funding campaign, which has raised $2,252 as of publishing time today.

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