Tesla Museum Gets Funded

[3JPLW]

No, the museum did not get funded. The campaign to raise funds to (hopefully?[1]) purchase the land for a museum got funded. There's a long ways to go before this is a reality.

[1]: There's another interested buyer. My read on it is that rallying the funds is only the first hurdle in getting the land to this organization. I'm sure there's lots of lawyering and bartering that is yet to be done.

[amirmansour]

Yes yes, but lets stay positive. There are still 39 more days to go.

[8ig8]

Interesting to note that two people (companies) ponied up the max of $33,333.

> If you donate $33,333 I will write a blog post about you, your company, or your product on TheOatmeal.com. My site averages 7 million unique visitors and 30 million page views. In the three years TheOatmeal.com has been online it's been read by over 100 million people and received nearly one billion page views.

[dkokelley]

That's a $1.11 CPM ($4.76 per unique) for fairly decent coverage. TheOatmeal.com is actually closer to a celebrity endorsement. If being pro-Tesla fits into their marketing strategy, this is a steal of a deal.

[mparlane]

One of the donators was: Joseph Sikorski "FRAGMENTS FROM OLYMPUS-The Vision of Nikola Tesla" Joseph Sikorski: co-author/director

The other was anonymous, but I doubt it will stay that way considering they chose the write-up reward.

[amirmansour]

The OatMeal facebook page said that second $33,333 donation pushed it to the finish line.

[dumbluck]

The title is misleading. They've raised enough money that with NY's matching funds they could perhaps pay for the property and preserve it as a historic site, but it won't be a museum anymore than my bathroom is a YMCA. They need millions more.

[ck2]

This makes me wonder if we could crowdsource the Titan Mare mission which got passed over for another bot to Mars.

It "only" costs $425 million ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer )

[kmfrk]

It could definitely hit a huge sum of money, if people who weren't just Indigogo and Kickstarter lurkers got into a campaign for funding it. Celebrities, big names in all kinds of industries could come together for something that's so obviously compelling.

I mean, look at what Kony managed to get people to do, and that wasn't even a proper cause.

[muratmutlu]

I honestly think the guy from Oatmeal carries so much weigh he could generate maybe several million dollars for a cause. If he did a couple of comics about the Mars bot who knows

Maybe there's a cheaper Mars project :)

[dpearson]

Not to be a spoil sport, but it's rather easy to raise money and buy land; it's much more difficult to get a probe built and onto the surface of another world.

Plus, does that estimate include support satellites (it apparently doesn't include the costs of getting the probe there)?

[cvanderlinden]

So many Tesla books out there. If I had to pick one to read, which would you recommend?

[amirmansour]

I highly recommend Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius. http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel...

[cschmidt]

I've heard good things about Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. It is on my "to read" list.

http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Light-Edison-Westinghouse-Elec...

[Wingman4l7]

Would anyone recommend his "My Inventions" autobiography?

[jack-r-abbit]

I don't know how long it took to get this far but right now it is 31K over goal... and it has 39 more days to go. I would not be surprised if it passed the $1M mark before it is over.

[tobyjsullivan]

It took 5 days to get this far (if I recall correctly).

[jusben1369]

I seem to remember what appeared to be a relatively independent academic debunking a great deal of the pro Tesla/anti Edison Oatmeal discussion which resulted in a very animated rebuttal. I wonder if this is just an extension of that challenge in some ways.

[ConnorRoberts]

Yes, but if they raised only $750,000 how much of that would have been left? Since the things being offered as part of pledges isn't free?

[tobyjsullivan]

Well, since the pledges are being paid directly to the not-for-profit organization, I actually think TheOatmeal is paying for the rewards out of pocket (hence all the limits).

[sharkweek]

this has so much potential to create awe and wonder for all it's visitors -- I really hope it's done well.

[y4m4]

There goes my 50$, hope to see this through :-)

[RandallBrown]

How the hell do we give our t-shirt size?

[AlphaDex]

I grew up a stone's throw away from Tesla's lab. (It's right on Tesla Street if I recall.)

I will definitely be making a donation.