[ Earth and Space Foundation - Funding for Fieldwork and Explorations | Research funding ]

Every year since 1995, the UK charity Earth and Space Foundation offers small awards (‘Earth and Space Awards’) to fieldwork and other activities that seek to deepen the understanding of the connections between environmentalism and space exploration.

Most expeditions are eligible. This includes university expeditions and other expeditions from private or non-profit organizations and government expeditions.

The foundation supports the following types of projects:

• USING SPACE TO HELP MAINTAIN THE EARTH AS AN OASIS
  • Using space technologies and exploration to understand the Earth’s environment. The Foundation funds exploration using technologies resulting from space exploration. Includes the novel use of satellite communications, GPS, remote sensing, advanced materials and power sources for understanding our environment. This category also includes the use of data from extraterrestrial exploration to help further our understanding of the Earth’s environments and the biosphere. Includes samples and data returned from missions in Earth orbit and beyond.
• USING THE EARTH TO HELP UNDERSTAND OTHER WORLDS AND TO CREATE A SPACE-FARING CIVILIZATION
  • Astrobiology related fieldwork or ‘analogue’ field work. Includes field research in Earth’s extreme environments that assist in the search for life off the Earth and the study of the survival of life in extreme environments.
  • Field research applying the Earth’s environmental and biological resources toward the human exploration and settlement of space. Includes the use of extraterrestrial ‘analog’ environments on Earth to test space technologies and human physiological and psychological studies in extreme environments.
  • Astronomy at the interface between Earth and space exploration / astroarchaeology. Includes expeditions making astronomical observations from remote, difficult to access, Earth locations, archaeological field projects studying the development of early civilizations that made significant contributions to astronomy and space sciences, field expeditions studying the way in which views of the astronomical environment shaped the nature of past civilizations.
• FOSTERING APPRECIATION OF THE LINKS BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTALISM AND SPACE EXPLORATION
  • Educational fieldtrips and projects. The Foundation will support projects that improve public understanding of the links between environmentalism and space exploration.