Humm,<br /><br />The Earth and Space Foundationprize has this to say:<br />"the Foundation has established Mars and Lunar Exploration Awards, which include awards for future explorers who trek across the Martian ice caps and scale Olympus Mons. The Foundation has a separate long-term endowment growth fund for these awards. "<br /><br />I take it somewhere on their web site they spell out the details of these awards, but the key sentence I was looking for was the "endowment growth fund."<br /><br />Your site says only:<br /><br />"The Mars Prize is an effort to close the gap between the X-Prize and the Mars Exploration Prizes of The Earth and Space Foundation. The Mars prize will start out with a goal of collecting $300,000 to be awarded to the winner. If donations and entry fees exceed that amount the prize will increase in value."<br /><br />A couple of points.<br />1) You say close the gap, but then you say it is $300K to be awarded to the winner. The question is winner of what? I couldn't find that answer on your site, so I am concluding that you mean the winner of the Earth and Space Foundation prize.<br />2) Your prize is for principal only. You say if more than $300K is collected you will increase the purse. Now, given that the difficulties of traveling to Mars, surviving there, let alone traversing both poles by land and climbing mount Olympus are so significant that nobody will be claiming this prize for a long, long, time. The E&S Foundation's prize will be invested and will grow anually at around 10%. So with compound growth the prize will be extremely large by the time it is claimed. You prize, however, will remain $300K and all the interest earned will go to support what? No mention of that on your web site.<br /><br />I don't know you so I am not going to suggest that this whole thing is a scam or the like. I will, however, suggest that you clarify the prize and give an accounting as to what use the interest from the prize money will be put.<br /><br />