Do you like space? Have you ever dreamed of walking on another planet? Did you have a rock collection as kid (or still do)?  Do you think 'asteroid miner' is a cool future job title? If you answered yes to any of these questions then this project might just be for you!

Since 2007, our small team of researchers has gone out hunting for meteorites on the Nullarbor Plain, Australia. We do this once a year, and have found nearly 20% of Australia's meteorites. But, sadly, our funding has run out which is why we need your help to fund this years expedition.

Space science in Australia is poorly funded because we don’t have a space program like other countries. We do our research on a shoestring budget using grant money where we can find it. We are university students and need fresh samples from the Nullarbor to conduct our research. With time constraints on our degrees, we need those samples this year. Without another field season our research will suffer or may not exist at all.

So what kind of research do we do? One of us is investigating the habitability of moons circling gas giants around other stars, just like the moon Endor from Star Wars. Another student is trying to understand the thermal history of asteroids and core formation. Understanding this may help us mine asteroids for resources one day. Lastly, one of us is investigating new places to look for microbial life on Mars. All of this is achieved by finding rocks from space in the Australian outback.

It costs billions of dollars to send rovers to planets, the Moon, comets and asteroids to look at rocks, and hundreds of billions to send people. But only a few thousand dollars is required to recover samples of these celestial bodies from the Nullarbor Plain, Australia. Meteorites come from these different bodies in the solar system, including Mars, and they are our best (and sometimes our only) way of studying various bodies.

We think space science is important because it asks the big questions such as how did planets and asteroids form? What makes Earth habitable? Where else in the universe could life exist? These sorts of questions are what our research group is trying to answer, and they are at the cutting edge of planetary science. Meteorites hold the key to some of these big questions, some of the answers to those questions could be in sitting on the Nullarbor right now. But, without people looking for them, we may never know. So please help back this project, because we think Space Rocks!



“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” –Carl Sagan.



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Traveling to the Nullarbor desert is a big task. It's 1700 km away from our university, that’s also 1700 km back! Not to mention all the driving on the Nullarbor. This means our biggest expense is our transportation. We rent the car on per km basis.
- Vehicle: $2200

Our other large expense is food! Five people for seven to nine days in the field, is a lot of food and other supplies. For safety reasons we also include long life emergency rations, radios, satellite phone, EPIRB and GPS units if something goes wrong. Batteries are also a significant cost.
- Food & Supplies: $1000

It takes two to three days to get to the field site, and the same again to get back. This means there are accommodation costs associated with staying in towns and cities along the way.
- Accommodation: $300

Things can go wrong! One year we had a brake fire in our trailer, and we regularly get flat tyres. We prepare for these things, but sometimes we need to leave the field to get these things fixed. The "local" mechanic is over 7 hours away!
- Emergency funds: $500

This fund-raising campaign also costs us a little bit to run and prepare. We also want to send you our stuff free of charge, because we believe that if you are helping us, we should help you.
- Campaign: $300

All that previous stuff is the cheap end of research. When we get the meteorites back to our university, we have to cut them open, make thin sections for microscopy, and chemically analyse them using equipment such as an Electron Microprobe, which is expensive to operate. Depending on the research we may have to ship samples (and PhD students) across Australia or the world to a unique lab to get results. These costs add up. Any funds raised exceeding our target amount will be used to support this lab-based research.
-On going research: $10,000+

We have been doing this for quite a few years and have become increasingly proficient. But every now and then things pop up. Remote field work has some inherent risk associated with it. Safety wise, we take all reasonable precautions for operating in such a remote location: GPS, Sat-phone, EPIRB, excess water, spare tyres, spare fuel etc.

Weather is hard to predict and also goes through extremes on the Nullarbor. We must choose the time to run the expedition to avoid the very hot summer, with some days over 50°C (122°F), and the cold and wet winter, when it can drop as low as -4°C (24°F) and the light is less suited to meteorite hunting. We aim to go out for 7-9 days in late April to early May. If however this is a wash out, we can try again in September.

There are two big reasons that may cut short our time looking for meteorites on the Nullarbor. First, our time may be cut short for medical reasons (snake bite, heat stroke, sink hole collapse, etc). Although unlikely, we take precautions against these potential problems. Second, is the risk of equipment failure. This can be small and annoying like a flat tyre, all the way up to serious mechanical problems with the car or trailer. Usually when this happens we split the team up into two groups, one manages the issue, the other looks for meteorites.

This campaign has been conceptualised and executed - by PhD and undergraduate students - as an independent venture separate from Monash university. This means as students, this is run in our own time, at our own cost and risk! We have exams, papers to write, and research to conduct. If we think we won't make a delivery deadline with the rewards, we will aim to tell you ahead of time, in an open and honest manner. We have set the deadlines far enough into the future that we don't see this as an issue.