There are many interconnected links between Earth and space exploration. The Earth and Space Foundation(基金会), was founded for the purposes of developing such links by field research and direct practical action.
Projects that have been supported by the Foundation include environmental projects using technologies of space exploration: satellite communications, GPS, remote sensing, advanced materials and power sources. For example, the people of Guatemala are faced with the loss of the forests on which their livelihood depends. Rather than opposing economic progress and trying to save the forests on their own strengths, one new approach is to improve the value of the forests. The Foundation has previously given a fund to a group of explorers that used remote sensing to plan eco-tourism routes in the forests of Guatemala, thus bringing income to the local populations through tourism. This novel approach is now making the protection of the forests a reasonable economic decision.
The Foundation funds many archaeological(考古学的) field projects, which reflect the contributions of the early civilization to astronomy(天文学) and space sciences. The Foundation helped fund a large archaeology project by the Society for Syrian Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. It worked with the Syrian government and used GPS and satellite imagery to locate banks of earth, or 'tels', containing treasures and relics of ancient civilizations. These collections are being used to build a better picture of the nature of the civilizations that gave birth to astronomy.
Field research also applies the Earth's environmental and biological resources to the human exploration and settlement of space. This may include the use of remote environments on Earth, as well as physiological and psychological studies in harsh environments. In one research project, the Foundation gave financial support to an international caving expedition to study the psychology of explorers in caves in Mexico for a period of time. The results of the tests were used by the NASA Johnson Space Center to improve US astronaut selection standard. Besides, a Mars-like programme has been launched in one area in the the Arctic, whose environment is similar to the Mars', to test communications and exploration technologies in preparation for the human exploration of Mars.
