Planetary Resources To Build Crowdfunded Public Space Telescope

kkleiner writes: Planetary Resources, the company that set its sights on mining asteroids, has launched a campaign to raise $1M to crowdsource the world's first publicly accessible space telescope. In an interview, co-founder and co-chairman Peter Diamandis stated that the ARKYD 100 telescope is a means of "extending the optic nerve of humanity." The company hopes that the campaign, which is supported by Richard Branson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Seth Green, will make an orbiting telescope available to the public to help schools and museums in their educational efforts to inspire great enthusiasm in space.