Most everyone supports efforts into space exploration, but there's always one aspect of space travel that can be a deal breaker: the price tag. Thanks to gravity and our pesky atmosphere, getting off the ground (and back down safely) requires a lot of propulsion and engineering prowess, and that doesn't come cheap.

So how do you work around the exorbitant costs of getting your spacecraft off the ground? Crowdfund your mission, of course. That's the idea behind Lunar Mission One, which just launched an ambitious Kickstarter campaign to fund an exploratory robotic mission to the Moon. Within the next 10 years, the U.K.-based team of scientists and engineers hopes to launch a vehicle to the Moon's south pole, where it will drill to a depth of 20 meters, or maybe even 100 meters if possible. The craft will then take samples of lunar rocks beneath the surface that date back to 4.5 billion years ago, giving scientists a better understanding of the Moon's geological composition.

David Iron, founder of Lunar Missions Ltd, the company behind Lunar Mission One, said the idea is to get the public more actively involved in space exploration -- something they haven't really had an opportunity to do up until now.