Jan 26, 2015 03:58 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The University of Colorado (CU) - Boulder is seeking funds to continue their effort to produce a telescope with a resolution equal to or better than the Hubble Telescope.

According to the CU Daily Camera, two people associated with the project are looking to raise $500,000 in the second stage of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. One of 12 participants in Phase I of the program, the CU Aragoscope and five others will vie for funding in Phase II.

"We think we have a pretty good shot. We're pretty optimistic about it," Anthony Harness, a CU doctoral student, told the Camera. "Dr. Cash has had two previous studies that have both gone through Phase I and Phase II, and this is the third Phase I that he has had.

"The work we've done the past few months makes us confident this is a viable option, a viable project."

Like Hubble, the Aragoscope would have a space component, but boasting a higher resolution than the iconic telescope must have NASA's attention.

"Quite frankly, our New Worlds starshade project overlaps with the architecture we want to use for the Aragoscope, so we feel we are in pretty good shape going into Phase Two," Webster Cash, a CU professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, said in a statement.

Presentations for the Innovative Advanced Concepts program will go on early this week and finalists for the next stage of funding will be made public by July.

"The lighter it is, the more you can launch into space; with the bigger the structure, with the bigger telescope, you can get much higher resolution," Harness said. "We've reached as far as we can go with the kind of traditional way of doing them. We need a new way of doing something revolutionary with bigger and bigger telescopes. The Aragoscope is sort of the next step, the new way of doing things."

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit