cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!
Kickstarter for preserving a vital part of space history · 1:42pm Jul 22nd, 2015
The spacesuit worn by Neil Armstrong as part of the first moon-landing is apparently degrading, and the Smithsonian can't afford preserving it on their own. 
Yes, that one tiny-tiny mile-stone I'm sure nobody remembers. Not that important, I guess. It's not like we...
WALKED ON THE FUCKING MOON, OR ANYTHING!
(Yes, I know that's actually Buzz Adrian. Still a gorgeous photo of the same type of suit, and Neil is even visibly in the visor.)
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, USA. I know you guys don't like taxes, but this is really freaking embarrassing. We're not talking about preserving the first drink umbrella here! 
That's the insultingly stupid bad news.
The good news is that instead of just quietly letting the thing rot away, the Smithsonian has launched a —of all things, a Kickstarter to both preserve and ultimately getting the suit back into a display. Something the thing has apparently been to brittle to do so the standard way for almost a decade now. (2006.)
The thing's a bit half-assed as far as Kickstarters go, I won't lie about that. Feels more like a budget proposal or a more traditional found-raiser. No stretch-goals, but quite a few backer bonuses I mean.
They seem to have an actual plan, though. I'll grant that. Here for example is a concept render on how the whole new exhibit centered around the suit (plus the command module) will look if they get enough founding.
Kinda neat a look, I must admit. Wouldn't mind visiting that myself one day if it happens.
Still, I thought you guys might want to hear about it. The thing is already half-way there with ~313 000$ of the half a million the project needs already raised, but if this thing grows to the point the various space-agencies take notice I certainly won't complain if a Mars mission tries to get crowd-founding or something.
Take a peak yourself, and spread the word if you feel it worthy of such.
If I ever see NASA or, hell, any space agency/company post a kick starter of any kind, I'm backing it.
Its election year, so sadly, all the folks that might have the means to save it money wise are trying to buy favor.
3260311
I think many would, actually.
Hell, the big (-ish) names in gaming usually get backing in the millions range, and that's for games in half-obscure generas or re-imaginings of properties publishers don't touch any more due to the drive to only have AAA level development but are sitting on the copyrights like greedy old dragons with a hoard.
Of course, that's quite the far cry (pardon the pun) from the hundreds of millions even the most humble space projects usually go for.
Still, would be an interesting experiment. 'You finally want that moon-base, humanity? How much are you all wiling to pay personally for it?'
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Sad but true. Thankfully the starter seems to be trucking along quite well. It's sitting at ~335000 now, quite the jump for just a few hours.
I can't believe this, arguably the single most important piece of clothing EVER WORN by Mankind, and we can't afford to preserve it? FFS congress, get your shit together.
3260368 its nice to see folks going to save it, sadly i dont have jack crap to send with how much political infighting has ruined things here. Time to not rage against ToME's bs deaths.
Wow, a lot of people missed a lot of the finer details in that Kickstarter and related news sources.
1) The suit is being preserved now and will continue to be preserved, regardless of the success or failure of the Kickstarter. It's just not on display, as the current preservation effort involves storing it in a climate controlled area that isn't accessible to the public.
2) The funding is to fast-track the conservation efforts, create a special, climate controlled display case, and get the suit out for public viewing as part of the 50th anniversary of the landing (in 2019). In the (incredibly unlikely, given we're more than 3/5 of the way through) event that the Kickstarter tanks, it only means that the suit might not be available as part of said display.
3) The Smithsonian has an annual operating budget north of $1 billion. Of that, around 60% is federally funded, while the remainder is gained through everything from souvenir sales to donation drives. In other words, the Smithsonian doing fundraising is part of their standard business practice.
Citations: From the bottom of the Kickstarter, in "Risks and Challenges":
Smithsonian budget info
More budget info (and other facts about the Smithsonian)
In short, fund it because you believe putting the suit on display is a worthy goal, not because you believe it's being held hostage.
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OK, fair enough, I could have been clearer on that but I did actually read the entire Kickstarted page.
But I'm still shocked that this and outright appeal that this required outside founding. We are not talking about preserving and exhibiting a minor historic relic here.
Many, myself included, feel that the moon-landing was a feat of such magnitude that its easily compared to the pyramids or the great wall. And those suits? Only the rockets and landers themselves are more iconic, and those aren't exactly easily recoverable slash replicatable.
Imagine if somebody painted a big smiley face on the capitol building's dome, and the US government had a big found-raiser to clean it up. Shouldn't something like that already be a part of the budget?
Or at LEAST be fast-tracked for next years budget? Again, the suit was last on public display 2006, so its not as if its need of further conservation efforts was a shocking development that happened in the blink of an eye.
3260666 I've worked in academia for the last two decades, so my perspective may be a bit different when it comes to budget juggling and fundraising, but the short version is simply: It's a sales pitch, not a cry for help. Heck, they have a $22 million line item in their budget for "Planning and Design for future projects," and this falls squarely into that category.
I absolutely agree: The suit is one of the most iconic parts of one of the greatest events of the 20th century. That's exactly why it makes sense for them to fund this with public support. How often do you think they have the opportunity to have a single, material item as the focus of their fundraising, one that's as widely recognized as this?
Most fundraising efforts tend to be focused on nebulous concepts rather than concrete items, and that makes it hard to get Mr. and Mrs. Disposable Income to be personally invested in it. Being able to legitimately focus to the level of "Help with this one, specific thing" is an absolute treasure. For them, not doing fundraising on this would be walking away and leaving $500,000 on the ground.
Put differently: This campaign took off like a rocket (
), is currently at $367,000 after two days, and is pretty much a shoe-in for blowing past the $500,000 mark. How much of that money would they have received if it was "Support the Smithsonian" instead of "Reboot the Suit?" Some, perhaps, but certainly not all.
To extend your smiley-on-the-dome analogy: Sure, there's a budget for cleaning it up, but if you can rally the public and get them to pay the tab, you can use that part of the budget for something else.