I've recently been learning a lot about the solar system and I've learned that it revolves around the galaxy at a 60 degree angle. They don't teach this in schools. In fact, what they teach in schools gives such a great misconception of what is actually going on, that I'm not surprised how few people I've talked to knew that the solar system revolved around the galaxy or even just how far away from the sun the Earth really is.
I really like Celestia. I think it's a fantastic tool. However, it doesn't have some of the features that could be very useful for someone doing research or trying to learn or prove something. One of those things is being able to trace the movement of an point on a planet over time in 3D space and then plotting it on a graph. It would also be great if you could display velocity vectors on any point.
Being a programmer myself (mostly asp.net webforms, MVC etc.), I realize how time consuming adding features like this could be, but I also see how useful they could be for people. Because of this, I thought it would be a good idea to get a Kickstarter project started to pay for some full-time development of this project. The incentive would be to have free access to an amazing open source educational tool when it is completed. I really think that there would be enough interest to raise enough money to pay a few developers to work on this full time for a year or so.
What do you guys think about that idea?