--- title: Bill Nye's Kickstarter: LightSail 'Democratizes' Space Exploration description: More than 2,700 backers have so far donated close to $160,000 for the project, which features Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in the video canonical: https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-13T17:20:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T07:10:18.768Z article:section: Science og:title: Bill Nye's New Kickstarter Project 'Democratizes' Space Exploration og:description: Watch the video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson og:url: https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bill Nye's New Kickstarter Project 'Democratizes' Space Exploration twitter:description: Watch the video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Bill Nye Wants Your Help to Build His 'Revolutionary' Solar Spacecraft > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=f3c3d184-da36-4104-b6da-43d82c9a3730&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney May 13, 2015 5:20 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney May 13, 2015 5:20 PM UTC Bill Nye the Science Guy wants to make space exploration more accessible for everybody, but he wants your help to make it happen. This week he launched [a Kickstarter campaign](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theplanetarysociety/lightsail-a-revolutionary-solar-sailing-spacecraft/description) for a LightSail, a very lightweight [CubeSat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat) (cube satellite) that relies on energy from the sun to get around instead of the heavy fuels typically used by spacecraft. “Photons (particles of light) have no momentum, but they are pure energy, and they have momentum,” Nye explained [in a recent Reddit AMA](http://time.com/3856522/bill-nye-science-guy-reddit-questions/). “So, in the vacuum of space, we can design a very low mass spacecraft with a very large reflective area, and it will get a continuous push.” More than 2,700 backers have so far donated close to $160,000 to the project, which has a goal of $200,000 and met its half-way point within 24 hours of its Kickstarter launch. If the campaign successfully reaches its goal, LightSail will be launched from the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket next year. “We are advancing space exploration by lowering the cost of sending space crafts way out into space,” Nye says in the video, which also features physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. “This democratizes space…one your’e up there you can fly to the moon or beyond to other planets.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/"},"headline":"Bill Nye Wants Your Help to Build His 'Revolutionary' Solar Spacecraft","datePublished":"2015-05-13T17:20:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:10:18.768Z","description":"Watch the video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson","url":"https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/","keywords":["Space","neil degrasse tyson","space travel"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3857427/bill-nye-kickstarter-space-solar-cubesat/","name":"Bill Nye Wants Your Help to Build His 'Revolutionary' Solar Spacecraft"}}]}] ```