most people dream of heading into space, but how many of us average joes can afford a 200+ grand tickets for a flight to the space few years down the road? almost none, i believe. lucky for us, there is an affordable alternative to show your family and friends your presence in space and that’s to take a space selfie without actually being into the space. how exactly are you going to do that? with ARKYD, a space telescope for everyone, of course. backed by the space-going veteran Planetary Resources, the ARKYD is a purpose-built space telescope that’s designed to observe space asteroids and for that purpose it has a large, main optic for capturing high-res images of objects in space. but that’s not all; what makes the ARKYD different from a regular space telescope is, it is fitted with an external display along with an arm-mounted camera that allows the control to take pictures of the ARKYD as it circles the Earth.
now, this is the part where things get interesting for selfie fanatics: Planetary Resources is giving you a chance to upload your own photo to be displayed on the said external display of the space telescope and the arm-mounted camera will then snap a picture of you on the screen with the Earth as the backdrop. so, effectively you are getting your very first Space Selfie, albeit in a rather indirect manner, and to do that, all you have to do is to make a pledge of just $29 or more. easy? yes. it is that simple. there’s a catch though, but not by design. the ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone campaign on Kickstarter was successfully funded earlier this month, but due to popular demand, it now has a limited Kickstarter Extension which, unfortunately, will be ending today on the July 19, 2013 (US Timing). so this is indeed a last call for this once in a lifetime experience. if you are keen, then you’d be super quick cos’ a day is all that’s left between getting on the space selfie bandwagon or not, and to be honest, such opportunity don’t come orbiting around us very often, do they?
check out the pledge video after the break to learn more (but don’t take too long to learn as the clock is ticking away).
