This is a crowd-funded rover in a way, though not private. About 200 million people have contributed a little bit of money to the project.

We should really try and crowd-fund a melt-bot to Enceladus or Europa, or a boat-bot to Titan. They're being criminally ignored by the various space agencies, and all have the potential to host life. See my comment above.

Awesome idea. It'd be quite fun coming up with the perks/rewards - $2,500 for a small space rock would definitely sell ha