Crowdsource to Mars student contest + Kickstarter interplanetary Cubesat thruster

Here are two space related crowdfunding campaigns:

The Society for International Space Cooperation (SISC) is “an educational nonprofit organization whose board includes astronauts, cosmonauts, and luminaries like director James Cameron.” They have started the project Crowdsource To Mars Online Platform & Student Contest

The Crowdsource To Mars International Online Platform and Student Competition is open to students from 12-18 years old. Its purpose is to inspire students around the world to focus their creativity on offering solutions to some of the challenges of a mission to Mars. Students work with mentors who can be family members, teachers, or science professionals. Interested students and mentors from around the world can sign up on the SISC site and find others to collaborate with on a project. Team projects with participants from multiple countries is encouraged. Online collaboration and tools will be provided for teams to be able to work together across the globe.

Winners will be awarded significant monetary prizes to support their education and given an extraordinary opportunity to meet today’s world-renowned scientists and scholars.

See the Crowdsource to Mars page for more details and for giving a donation.

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The Kickstarter CAT: A Thruster for Interplanetary CubeSats by Benjamin Longmier, Ph.D (which I’ve mentioned before) aims to raise $200k to develop small plasma thrusters that can use water or Iodine to provide propulsion for nanosats that will be powerful and efficient enough to move them out of earth orbit and into deep space.

For more info:

http://www.spacesociety.org/crowdsourcetomars2014