What happened to Planet Quest?
They seem to never get going..........

I think it's a race between them and Orbit.
At least those stars and planets aren't going anywhere.

---

me@rescam.org

I'd bet money it wont happen....

Do you have money to bet?

Couldn't you lend him some?

The object is to double your money. :)

Wow, Hughie Green lives!!

As does PlanetQuest! :-D

Its been dead for 2 years, Show me the latest published update?

Its dead and its a scam.......

What a shame too...sounded like an incredible project. let me know if there is any news.

---

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

I received and e-mail from: Laurance Doyle at ldoyle@seti.org on May 9, 2007

"Thanks for your interest! Yes, we just need a bit more funding and we can start the alpha release -- I hope within a few months. Please stay tuned!"

IN REPLY TO MY MESSAGE:

"I am wondering when you will begin your project? Its been years and I am very interested in this. So whats the news??"

---

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

Dat project sounded good...

---

Scorpions - Wind Of Change

I received and e-mail from: Laurance Doyle at ldoyle@seti.org on May 9, 2007

"Thanks for your interest! Yes, we just need a bit more funding and we can start the alpha release -- I hope within a few months. Please stay tuned!"

IN REPLY TO MY MESSAGE:

"I am wondering when you will begin your project? Its been years and I am very interested in this. So whats the news??"

My First Response was on 5/12/05 with the same type of message...2yrs!

---

Well, that or a single little room ABOVE a bookstore.

.....I just decided to do a bit of searching, and discovered that the address that Planetquest has on their donation page is....suspect. The base address (without suite number) actually belongs to a book store, and after going on Google Maps and taking a look at the street view....I'm a little disappointed.

Type 1259 El Camino Real, Menlo Park into Google Maps, go to street view, and it's the place with the white van in front of it (to the LEFT of "Guy Plumbing and Heating".

Obviously Planetquest exists, I just really think something is fishy here. It's been far too long, the web site has been horribly run for the last several years years, and there's not a shred of evidence to suggest we can expect anything any time soon.

If I had donated several years ago, I would sure be furious right now.

---

That is an old address. The new address has been up for some time.
http://www.planetquest.org/contact.html which also matches their whois info.
Check out the PQ staff resumes at the SETI Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Quality Process, etc.

---

me@rescam.org

Thread started 24 November 2004 and still nothing up and running yet :(

---

Metal Detecting

Thread started 24 November 2004 and still nothing up and running yet :(

And there is such a wealth of information... on other (related) stuff. :) At least you are still around.

---

me@rescam.org

That is an old address. The new address has been up for some time.
http://www.planetquest.org/contact.html which also matches their whois info.
Check out the PQ staff resumes at the SETI Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Quality Process, etc.

Ah....I got that address from their "Network for Good" donation page (where it remains the old address). I guess they didn't bother to update that part. Can't say that surprises me at all......

---

Ah....I got that address from their "Network for Good" donation page (where it remains the old address). I guess they didn't bother to update that part. Can't say that surprises me at all......

Thanks for pointing out that error. It should be changed soon to reflect the correct address. :)

---

me@rescam.org

...Our lack of progress at the moment is a funding issue which we feel could be solved if we can get initial funding to a point where we can finish the alpha test version of the software and thereafter sign folks up to be supporting-founding members of PlanetQuest.

We do have sufficient astronomical data (stellar light curves) at present for a thorough test of the system and could accommodate perhaps up to 100,000 users for a year. This was previously my main concern. We have also carried the problem through from data acquisition to light curve model fitting (the transit detection algorithm) and therefore see no technical issues in the way of proceeding.

Most of our personnel, however, are also extremely busy people working in other businesses and on other projects, and so PlanetQuest has not received the attention lately that it needs to move forward as quickly as it could, because it is largely (although not entirely) a volunteer project at this point.

I would like to see it take off this year—that is, that we are able to release an alpha version of the Collaboratory and start to post key parts of our educational web site on a daily basis. I am involved in fund raising for PlanetQuest at present, and also writing a comprehensive business plan.

The overall project in execution is quite complex, but the basic overview ideas are readily understandable. After about seven years now since the initial idea, we are still unique in offering a project like PlanetQuest (which surprises me a little). Computational speed (i.e., Moore's Law) has gone up over a factor of 25 in that time, so we have had to collect a lot more stellar data. Our team is ready to proceed, then, as soon as we can get support for the final phase of the programming...

With best regards,

Laurance Doyle (President, PlanetQuest)

---

me@rescam.org

I live 10 minutes from RIT and hold a Bachelor's degree from them.

---

Just wondering if Planet Quest project is Dead or Alive??

Anyone know for sure??

Back in August they were $100K short. I do not know their current financial status.

---

me@rescam.org

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

Thanks again and best regards, Laurance Doyle

---

me@rescam.org

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

Thanks again and best regards, Laurance Doyle

When can we expect a Alpha/Beta release to crunch on?

---

To boldly go where no human has gone before!

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

Thanks again and best regards, Laurance Doyle

When can we expect a Alpha/Beta release to crunch on?

By the looks of it never.

---

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

Thanks again and best regards, Laurance Doyle

When can we expect a Alpha/Beta release to crunch on?

By the looks of it never.

I wrote:
Mark Peters wrote:

When is the project joinable for members? Still in the Alpha testing stage or is the a Beta release comming up? I would be glad to join and help crunching data packages for you.

Kind regards,

Mark Peters


This is the reply from Laurance himself:

Much thanks! We're still working on the alpha -- testing the false alarm rate algorithms. Just the opposite of firemen -- we can miss fires, but we can't afford any false alarm planet announcements.

All the best, Laurance

Looks to me the project can not affort to miss or missfire with any object in space. Try to solve this with a reliable algoritme is hard job. They do try to have more data ready. If the project comes from the ground, this will have a huge impact on the crunchers and will become one of the biggest projects in the world. I still have my hopes up for them.

---

To boldly go where no human has gone before!

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

Thanks again and best regards, Laurance Doyle

When can we expect a Alpha/Beta release to crunch on?

By the looks of it never.

I wrote:
Mark Peters wrote:

When is the project joinable for members? Still in the Alpha testing stage or is the a Beta release comming up? I would be glad to join and help crunching data packages for you.

Kind regards,

Mark Peters


This is the reply from Laurance himself:

Much thanks! We're still working on the alpha -- testing the false alarm rate algorithms. Just the opposite of firemen -- we can miss fires, but we can't afford any false alarm planet announcements.

All the best, Laurance

Looks to me the project can not affort to miss or missfire with any object in space. Try to solve this with a reliable algoritme is hard job. They do try to have more data ready. If the project comes from the ground, this will have a huge impact on the crunchers and will become one of the biggest projects in the world. I still have my hopes up for them.

@misfit...:))

Laurance wrote:

Hi Mark!

Thanks for your confidence! Yes, that is our major concern, is that if it does go to 5 million folks that we have enough data. So, we are planning on lots of collaborations with other projects staring at the sky -- that they can share with us any eclipsing binaries that happen to fall in the field of their, for example, supernova searches.

We usually approach companies ourselves -- I had to write a business plan (some of the time taken up this year) but that is finished now and ready to present to various companies that may want to help move PlanetQuest forward.

Thanks for staying tuned! With very best regards, Laurance

For me this is a sign they do want some sponsors, maybe like Misfit said, they are looking for the last fist full of dollars/euro's to make the jump to Beta testing or maybe a live version joinable for a select few.

---

To boldly go where no human has gone before!