 So, honestly, I think the idea comes off as kind of crazy to the uninitiated. Have you ever dreamed of having your own spacecraft? I'm Zach, a grad student in aerospace engineering at Cornell, and I want to fundamentally change the way that people think about and take part in space flight. The aerospace industry in particular is pretty conservative. There's ways of doing things that were figured out in the 60s and 70s that work, so people sort of take the, if it isn't broke, don't fix it mentality, I think, a lot. A lot of people say, oh, you know, we haven't been to the moon since the 60s, 70s, and why? We're not exploring anywhere. What's the point of going up there? But when you start to actually get into the science of it, the things you can do from satellites, it's pretty impressive. Nations kind of are risk-averse these days. We started out under NASA's umbrella, but when the Columbia crashed, NASA cut about a billion dollars worth of programs. The private sector could never have done what NASA did in the 50s and 60s, but the great thing is they did it, so now the private sector doesn't have to. I mean, that's the point, right? I think NASA existed at that time before any of this had been done, when no one knew how to do it. Now private companies can take that knowledge and that experience that NASA developed and run with it. The project is called SkyCube. SkyCube is a satellite. It's going to orbit the Earth for about three months, sending back tweets from space, pictures from space. We'll provide this application where you can just type in a message, press the button, it will get relayed all the way up to the satellite, and it will send it back into you with radio. And then we will trigger a special release of a large balloon, and it will become pretty much the most visible star in space. So these are actually, as far as I know, the world's smallest satellites, and we're going to pack about 200 of these little satellites inside here and let them loose in low Earth orbit. And for a donation of about $300, you can have your own tiny satellite in space. ArdoSat is Arduino's in-space. The idea is to create a space development platform, to put something in space that people can access, write their own code, get their own data, and just run their own ideas. They will be able to go onto the Internet, log onto our satellite, upload their code or their application of the game that they wrote, and then run it, receive data, receive feedback, maybe take some pictures of the satellite around, and have a true space experience. Right now we're working on our third-generation spacesuit. It's an IVA suit, it means intravehicular activity. So it's in case of emergency use only, and we're designing it to be flight certified. Imagine you have a ball and a string, and you're spinning it over your head. The string in the middle stays straight, right? Expand that to an Earth-sized system. The Earth rotates, and then you have a counterweight, a satellite, deep out in space with a long, strong string attached back to the Earth. The Earth elevator, we just simply don't have the materials to build it yet. We just don't have that technology yet. About a year ago, our team kind of came up with a breakthrough, and we can build a lunar elevator now with current technology. We tried for a couple of years to go through the more traditional academic funding routes, writing research proposals and grants. We're coming up short every time. Silicon Valley only invests in ones and zeros. If they can't predict how you're going to be the next Instagram, you are not getting funded by Silicon Valley. We live in a very rich world. I mean, there's lots of resources, and there's a long tail on it. There are lots and lots of people who they can't contribute $10 million, but they can contribute $10, and Kickstarter is a way of accessing that. Kickstarter is really what's enabled us to move forward with this and fly it and make the sort of progress that's been made on the project in the last year. It doesn't sound very appealing to me to give up equity in the company, and that was part of the draw of Kickstarter. I mean, we went from napkin to a top one percent Kickstarter campaign in four months, to a high-altitude balloon launch in five months, to a signed launch contract in six months. We originally set our goal, our sort of bare minimum goal, to do the project at about $30,000. That's sort of the bare minimum we thought we would need to build something, and we ended up making over $75,000. $75,000 for two or three months of work is pretty good in my book. It's not a tremendous amount of money that we raised. $27,000 is not very much money, even for just a spacesuit. We anticipate flight-certified spacesuits for rocket companies like SpaceX costing in the neighborhood of $50,000 for one suit. Out of $100,000, about $45,000 goes into just fulfilling the Kickstarter obligations. That's a lot of t-shirts. The biggest pressure was Kickstarter's limit in donation. They have a $10,000 donation limit. I would have set the suit at $18,000 to $20,000 for a backer, and we were kind of forced, because of that limit, to set a $10,000 suit. And the public perception is we're going to build an elevator on the moon, so we better use the little bit of money that we have as a catalyst, as a resource, to go out and do the rest of the stuff we need to do. When I was looking at the options for participation, I realized that there is an opportunity to actually hit the launch button on this fascinating project, and I contributed $10,000, which was the highest contribution opportunity that was available. We want to create enthusiasm about space. We want people to know, yeah, it's up there, it takes huge rockets to get up there, but you, yourself, can fund something up there. What we wanted to do was first check that we weren't drinking your own Kool-Aid, because we're all nuts about space, and we all love it, but we wanted to make sure that there actually were people out there who want to design stuff as well. You can't really structurally think about it. You need a diverse group of people called, you know, 8 billion, come up with all sorts of crazy ideas, and what Kickstarter allows and crowdfunding generally allows is that you can take those crazy ideas and you just test them in the market. Within four weeks, you know, do people like it or people don't like it, and if people don't like it, you don't raise your money. Education is an important piece of being engaged into this process. Space sciences was a new area that I didn't know much about. I think space is just fundamentally inspiring and cool, right? I mean, it's still the final frontier, it really is. I mean, it's somewhere that only a few hundred people in the history of mankind have ever been. People can participate in space in a way that they couldn't even like a decade ago. When it gets to where you can fly into space basically as easily as you could fly across the Atlantic 50 years ago, then we're going to see some real innovation. The platform like Kickstarter allows projects to be put in a domain out there where individuals with a common purpose, it's not about success or failure, but it's about what the purpose is and how many people can align behind it. And when you have that working, you've got a very powerful force. I think science and technology have always been the way forward, even if we don't really know what to do with it when it comes along the first time. I think it's part of the human condition that you have to keep reaching for new stuff and keep trying.
 So, honestly, I think the idea comes off as kind of crazy to the uninitiated.
 Have you ever dreamed of having your own spacecraft?
 I'm Zach, a grad student in aerospace engineering at Cornell,
 and I want to fundamentally change the way that people think about and take part in space flight.
 The aerospace industry in particular is pretty conservative.
 There's ways of doing things that were figured out in the 60s and 70s that work,
 so people sort of take the, if it isn't broke, don't fix it mentality, I think, a lot.
 A lot of people say, oh, you know, we haven't been to the moon since the 60s, 70s, and why?
 We're not exploring anywhere. What's the point of going up there?
 But when you start to actually get into the science of it,
 the things you can do from satellites, it's pretty impressive.
 Nations kind of are risk-averse these days.
 We started out under NASA's umbrella, but when the Columbia crashed,
 NASA cut about a billion dollars worth of programs.
 The private sector could never have done what NASA did in the 50s and 60s,
 but the great thing is they did it, so now the private sector doesn't have to.
 I mean, that's the point, right?
 I think NASA existed at that time before any of this had been done, when no one knew how to do it.
 Now private companies can take that knowledge and that experience that NASA developed and run with it.
 The project is called SkyCube. SkyCube is a satellite.
 It's going to orbit the Earth for about three months, sending back tweets from space, pictures from space.
 We'll provide this application where you can just type in a message, press the button,
 it will get relayed all the way up to the satellite,
 and it will send it back into you with radio.
 And then we will trigger a special release of a large balloon,
 and it will become pretty much the most visible star in space.
 So these are actually, as far as I know, the world's smallest satellites,
 and we're going to pack about 200 of these little satellites inside here
 and let them loose in low Earth orbit.
 And for a donation of about $300, you can have your own tiny satellite in space.
 ArdoSat is Arduino's in-space.
 The idea is to create a space development platform, to put something in space that people can access,
 write their own code, get their own data, and just run their own ideas.
 They will be able to go onto the Internet, log onto our satellite,
 upload their code or their application of the game that they wrote,
 and then run it, receive data, receive feedback, maybe take some pictures of the satellite around,
 and have a true space experience.
 Right now we're working on our third-generation spacesuit.
 It's an IVA suit, it means intravehicular activity.
 So it's in case of emergency use only, and we're designing it to be flight certified.
 Imagine you have a ball and a string, and you're spinning it over your head.
 The string in the middle stays straight, right?
 Expand that to an Earth-sized system.
 The Earth rotates, and then you have a counterweight, a satellite,
 deep out in space with a long, strong string attached back to the Earth.
 The Earth elevator, we just simply don't have the materials to build it yet.
 We just don't have that technology yet.
 About a year ago, our team kind of came up with a breakthrough,
 and we can build a lunar elevator now with current technology.
 We tried for a couple of years to go through the more traditional academic funding routes,
 writing research proposals and grants.
 We're coming up short every time.
 Silicon Valley only invests in ones and zeros.
 If they can't predict how you're going to be the next Instagram,
 you are not getting funded by Silicon Valley.
 We live in a very rich world.
 I mean, there's lots of resources, and there's a long tail on it.
 There are lots and lots of people who they can't contribute $10 million,
 but they can contribute $10, and Kickstarter is a way of accessing that.
 Kickstarter is really what's enabled us to move forward with this
 and fly it and make the sort of progress that's been made on the project in the last year.
 It doesn't sound very appealing to me to give up equity in the company,
 and that was part of the draw of Kickstarter.
 I mean, we went from napkin to a top one percent Kickstarter campaign in four months,
 to a high-altitude balloon launch in five months, to a signed launch contract in six months.
 We originally set our goal, our sort of bare minimum goal, to do the project at about $30,000.
 That's sort of the bare minimum we thought we would need to build something,
 and we ended up making over $75,000.
 $75,000 for two or three months of work is pretty good in my book.
 It's not a tremendous amount of money that we raised.
 $27,000 is not very much money, even for just a spacesuit.
 We anticipate flight-certified spacesuits for rocket companies like SpaceX
 costing in the neighborhood of $50,000 for one suit.
 Out of $100,000, about $45,000 goes into just fulfilling the Kickstarter obligations.
 That's a lot of t-shirts.
 The biggest pressure was Kickstarter's limit in donation.
 They have a $10,000 donation limit.
 I would have set the suit at $18,000 to $20,000 for a backer,
 and we were kind of forced, because of that limit, to set a $10,000 suit.
 And the public perception is we're going to build an elevator on the moon,
 so we better use the little bit of money that we have as a catalyst, as a resource,
 to go out and do the rest of the stuff we need to do.
 When I was looking at the options for participation,
 I realized that there is an opportunity to actually hit the launch button
 on this fascinating project, and I contributed $10,000,
 which was the highest contribution opportunity that was available.
 We want to create enthusiasm about space.
 We want people to know, yeah, it's up there, it takes huge rockets to get up there,
 but you, yourself, can fund something up there.
 What we wanted to do was first check that we weren't drinking your own Kool-Aid,
 because we're all nuts about space, and we all love it,
 but we wanted to make sure that there actually were people out there
 who want to design stuff as well.
 You can't really structurally think about it.
 You need a diverse group of people called, you know, 8 billion,
 come up with all sorts of crazy ideas,
 and what Kickstarter allows and crowdfunding generally allows
 is that you can take those crazy ideas and you just test them in the market.
 Within four weeks, you know, do people like it or people don't like it,
 and if people don't like it, you don't raise your money.
 Education is an important piece of being engaged into this process.
 Space sciences was a new area that I didn't know much about.
 I think space is just fundamentally inspiring and cool, right?
 I mean, it's still the final frontier, it really is.
 I mean, it's somewhere that only a few hundred people
 in the history of mankind have ever been.
 People can participate in space in a way that they couldn't even like a decade ago.
 When it gets to where you can fly into space basically as easily
 as you could fly across the Atlantic 50 years ago,
 then we're going to see some real innovation.
 The platform like Kickstarter allows projects to be put in a domain out there
 where individuals with a common purpose, it's not about success or failure,
 but it's about what the purpose is and how many people can align behind it.
 And when you have that working, you've got a very powerful force.
 I think science and technology have always been the way forward,
 even if we don't really know what to do with it when it comes along the first time.
 I think it's part of the human condition that you have to keep reaching for new stuff and keep trying.