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NASA/NSS Space Settlement Contest
IMPORTANT: the 2012 contest has a different deadline. Entries will be due on March 15 to make it easier for contestants to attend ISDC. Also, the entry form has changed and you must send two copies of the form, one attached to your project and the other loose.
This annual contest, co-sponsored by NASA Ames and the National Space Society (NSS), is for 6-12th graders (11-18 years old) from anywhere in the world. Individuals, small teams of two to six, and large teams of seven or more (often whole classrooms with teacher leadership) may enter.
Grades 6-8, 9-10 and 11-12 are judged separately, except for the grand prize.
Students develop space settlement designs and related materials.
These are sent to NASA Ames for judgement. Submissions must be received by March 15. Contest Results will be posted on this site on April 15.
Results of past contests:
Teachers are encouraged to use this contest as part of their curriculum. See the space settlement teacher's page and the Space Settlement page.
Contest prizes and certificates:
- All participants will receive a certificate. All submissions must be received by March 15. Contest results will be posted on this site on April 15.
- The best submission, regardless of category, wins the grand prize, consisting of the space colony submission being placed on the NASA Ames World Wide Web site.
- The best individual submission, regardless of age, will be awarded $2,000 by the NSS Bruce M. Clark, Jr., Memorial Scholarship. Assistance with travel expenses is available should the winner attend ISDC.
- All 2011 contest participants are invited to attend the NSS 30th Annual International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Huntsville, Alabama, May 18-22, 2011. Special activities for contestants are planned, including:
- A reception for contestants, teachers, parents, etc.
- All contestants who attend will be invited to display a poster
of their work.
- The highest ranking winners attending will be invited to give an oral
presentation.
- The highest scoring attending winner(s) will receive the NSS
Student Space Settlement of the Year Award.
- Note that 85 contestants attended ISDC 2009, along with their parents,
teachers, siblings, and friends.
These activities are not yet finalized and may change. Nonetheless,
this is a tremendous opportunity to present your work, meet some of
the most important people in space development as well as your fellow
contestants, and have a great time. If you plan to attend the conference, please contact nss-students@comcast.net. This is the contact for poster space instructions, oral
presentation times, and all other contest-related conference issues. Note: contestants are responsible
for all travel and conference expenses, including any fees associated
with the reception and tour. Students from outside of the U.S. planning on attending the ISDC should apply as soon as possible for a passport as it may take some time (months) to acquire one. Requests for letters of invitation should be sent to nss-students@comcast.net as early as possible along with the email address of the appropriate US Embassy.
- Contest categories are individual 6-8 grade, small group 6-8 grade, large group 6-8 grade, individual 9-10 grade, small group 9-10 grade, large group 9-10 grade, individual 11-12 grade, small group 11-12 grade, and large group 11-12 grade. An additional category based on artistic and literary merit is also included in the contest.
- There will be a special Life Support category. Entries with strength in life support and/or describe biology laboratories and experiments that take advantage of variable psuedo-gravity levels and the radiation environment inside space colonies will be considered for this category.
- Contestants give NASA the right to publish their submissions without restriction as a condition for entering the contest.
Here are some of the grand prize entries from previous years:
Student Art Gallery
Rules
- Submissions must relate to orbital settlements. Settlements may not be on a planet or moon. Settlements must be permanent, relatively self-sufficient homes, not temporary work camps.
- Designs, original research, essays, stories, models, artwork or any other orbital space settlement related materials may be submitted.
- Submissions must be made in hard copy. No electronic submissions are accepted under any circumstances. This includes Power Point presentations, discs, CD's, DVD, videos or anything but paper. NASA does not return contestant submissions.
- Two copies of the entry form with the appropriate information must be included with the submission. Fill out all fields.
- The submission must be the student's own work. Plagiarism is forbidden. You may quote short passages, but material copied from a source must be surrounded in double quotes (") and the source indicated. For example: "This material copied from somewhere," My Favorite Space Book. Copied materials should rarely be more than a few lines, and never longer than a few paragraphs. Quoting long passages is forbidden. Entries caught plagiarizing will be rejected and disposed of. Every year 10-15 entries are caught copying materials from the web. They are eliminated from the competition. This is paricularly sad for teams when one team member plagiarizes and the others are ethical. For teams, we recommend checking each other for plagiarism. Use Google (or other search engine) to surround 6-8 suspect words with double quotes, for example "text I think might be plagiarised by someone." If there is a perfect match, then look at the source material to make sure there wasn't an accidental match.
- Instructors, mentors or parents may assist the student in presenting relevant resources, discussing core concepts and editing, but the work itself, must be entirely student driven.
- Always include a bibliography.
- Submissions are not returned. Keep a copy for yourself.
Resources and Tips
- If your entry is longer that 10-20 pages, consider including a one page executive summary on the best features of your entry. Be sure to include original ideas, major focus, and any parts particularly well done in the executive summary. This will help the judges find the best parts of your entry.
- Avoid including technical material not directly related to your space settlement. This is a space settlement contest and marginally related material will make it difficult for the judges. If they can't find your space settlement elements easily you won't score well.
- Refer to the NASA Ames Space Settlement Page.
- Refer to the NSS Space Settlement Library.
- Use the space colony designer's
corner.
- Use the space settlement teacher's page.
- Refer to the NSS Space Settlement Library.
- Refer to the NSS Library.
- Generic Earth Orbiting Space Settlement Requirements by Anita Gale.
- Models are hard to handle and expensive to ship. Consider sending pictures of your model. If you must send the whole model, make it strong. Fragile models are frequently demolished during shipping or transport. Submissions are not returned. NASA is not responsible for the loss or damage to any submission.
- Do your best to get the science right.
- Make your design as quantitative as possible.
- Include a bibliography. We want to know where you got your ideas and materials.
- Be creative. Surprise the judges. Put something of your own personality into your work.
- Consider designing a colony that you would really like to live in.
- Consider alternate possibilities and clearly describe why you made the choices you did.
- Present your material clearly and neatly.
- When you discuss someone else's ideas or work, even if you don't copy their wording, reference it. We recommend a reference format along the lines of "[author year]." For example, you might write:
Small children will be required not to be allowed in the center of the cylinder since radiation levels are minimized near the hull [Horia 2005].
Then in the References section at the end of your paper put:
[Horia 2005] Horia Mihail Teodorescu and Al Globus, "Radiation Passive Shield Analysis and Design for Space Applications," SAE 2005 Transactions Journal of Aerospace.
- Use the entry form. If we don't know who you are we won't be able to send you your prizes and certificates. Be sure to attach a copy of the entry form to each part of your submission. For example, if you have a report and artwork, attach an entry form to each so that if they get separated during handling, we will be able to put them back together.
- Submissions must be received by March 15. All decisions by the judges are final.
- Have fun.
Submission
Send a hard copy of your entry and two hard copies of a filled out entry form (one attached to your entry and the other separate) to:
NASA Ames Research Center
Al Globus/Mail Stop 262-4
Bldg. 262, Rm. 277
P.O. Box 1
Moffett Field, CA 94035-0001
by March 15, 2011.
NOTE: we do not send verification that entries have been received. Please don't ask for one.
Teachers using the contest in their class should submit all projects together. Note: electronic submission is not allowed, only hard copy.
Discussion
Space colonies are permanent communities in orbit, as opposed to living on the Moon or other planets. The work of Princeton physicist Dr. O'Neill and others have shown that such colonies are technically feasible, although expensive. Settlers of this high frontier are expected to live inside large air-tight rotating structures holding hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people along with the animals, plants, and single celled organisms vital to comfort and survival. There are many advantages to living in orbit: zero-g recreation, environmental independence, plentiful solar energy, and terrific views to name a few. There is plenty of room for everyone who wants to go; the materials from a single asteroid can build space colonies with living space equal to about 500 times the surface area of the Earth.
Why should colonies be in orbit? Mars and our Moon have a surface gravity far below Earth normal. Children raised in low-g will not develop bones and muscles strong enough to visit Earth comfortably. In contrast, orbital colonies can be rotated to provide Earth normal pseudo-gravity in the main living areas.
We hope teachers will make this contest part of their lesson plan. While designing a space colony, students will have a chance to study physics, mathematics, space science, environmental science, and many other disciplines. We would like students outside the science classes to participate as well. Thus, contest submissions may include designs, essays, stories, models, and artwork. Students can design entire colonies or focus on one aspect of orbital living. A class or school may submit a joint project where small teams tackle different areas in a coordinated fashion. For example, consider a cross curriculum project where science classes design the basic structure and support systems, art students create pictures of the interior and exterior, English students write related short stories, social studies students develop government and social systems, Industrial Technology builds a scale model, and the football team proposes low-g sports.
Schools and teachers may consider ongoing multi-year projects; each year's students add detail to a space colony design that becomes part of the school or class portfolio. In this case, teachers assign students to different parts of the design, gradually building a more and more complete and practical space colony concept. Each year the project can be submitted to the contest.
Other Space Settlement Contests
Continuing Education
Colleges and Universities offering space science and astronautics programs.
NASA Academy. A National educational, training, and research resource for college undergraduate and graduate students, dedicated to promoting current and future opportunities for innovation and leadership in aerospace-related careers.
The space settlement home page.
Additional Space Settlement sites include:
We would like to thank the NASA Ames Contractor Council and the San Jose State University Research Foundation for their generous and critical support.
Author: Al Globus
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