NASA Wants Your Ambitious High-Tech Contest Ideas

In an effort to create future Centennial Challenges, NASA is asking the general public to come up with (and submit) ambitious contest ideas. For the next six weeks, the Innovative Partnerships Program will be accepting ideas for new contests, with all submissions becoming public domain information. "According to NASA, any idea can be proposed for a prize competition that addresses challenges related to the mission of NASA in aeronautics, exploration, science, or space operations. Crosscutting topics or those that also address related national or global needs are especially valuable. The challenges must require basic and applied research, technology development or prototype demonstrations."

Comments

I got it!

[wesslen]

How about we find a useful mission for the billions of dollars in research we have just sitting around NASA? Like a mission that would improve the quality of human life instead of watching m&m's floating in zero g. I'm just sayin...

Re:I got it!

[c6gunner]

You should study history. Humankind doesn't want better quality of life. They've had thousands of years to work at that goal, but choose to wage war, rape, plunder, pillage and kill instead. Now, get off your liberal arse, and help to develop a better bomb.

I know that some bumper-sticker-thinker will probably mod you insightful, but I thought I'd point out that you're pretty much 100% wrong. Quality of life (and the average life span) has risen with minor fluctuations throughout recorded history, while the amount of "war, rape, plunder, pillage and kill[ing]" per capita has steadily declined. In other words, not only do we live longer and better than we ever have before, but we hurt each other less, too.

Also, I'm fairly sure you're misusing the word "Liberal".

Other than that, you're completely right!

read between the lines

[neonprimetime]

NASA Wants Your Ambitious High-Tech Contest Ideas

because they don't have enough time or funding to do the research themselves!

Re:Nasa can't afford the programs it has now.

[MickLinux]

I agree that Nasa can't afford what it has now. That said, NASA may be better off spending its money on contests.

But this is an opportunity for any teams of graduate researchers who *want* to take their research into the market.

All they have to do is:

1. Design a contest that they are likely to win.
2. Submit contest (or have a friend submit the contest, to avoid the apparant conflict of interest).
3. Wait for similar contest to come out
4. Enter similar contest and publicize heavily.
5. Encourage donations
6. Win, or come close
7. Sell product under heavy publication
8. Profit!

Whether you win or not determines the initial profitability -- but not the long term profitability.
The free publicity of being on the news helps determine long-term profitability.

Here's an easy one

[Gravatron]

How about a contest to design a modern versions of the cameras used on the Apollo project? By that, I mean a lightweight solution to taking photographs and video on the lunar surface, usable by an astronaut in full gear, with enough battery life and capacity to take a few thousand pictures and or X many hours of video.

Bonus points will be awarded if your solution also includes extra equipment, such as monopods/tripods, high gain antenna, solar recharge kit, is capable of surviving other hostile environments, such as the surface of mars, is capable of using different filters for uv/IR/etc, remote control options, etc.

Design a Space Broom

[Anonymous Coward]

Clean up all the debris that is already up there and you'll lower the difficulty of future challenges.

Re:Active Structures

[mcgrew]

That would be a great idea if it weren't for the laws of thermodynamics.

Re:Contest contest

[CraftyJack]

Don't get me wrong here. I am not saying I am encouraging this or that i am proud that NASA is doing this, but at least it will bring more attention to our space program than the average American has been giving it in recent years. It's sad, people used to crowd around the TV to watch when a shuttle launched, now they just catch a glimpse on the news when they are flipping channels from tool academy and Hasselhoff on America's got talent.

This could (and is) said of every half-baked NASA effort, including the whole "name-node-3" thing. To my mind, asking the general public to come up with ideas for Centennial Challenges means that:
(a) NASA can't come up with a clear picture of what technologies are high priority and could benefit from a Centennial Challenge.
(b) NASA sees the Centennial Challenges as public outreach with no real engineering payoff - so it doesn't matter what the topics are.
(c) both (a) and (b).

Dear NASA

[camperdave]

Dear NASA,

Here's a contest for you: The Find A Proper Administrator Contest.

O'Keefe and Griffin really did a number on NASA. We've known for a while that the shuttles needed replacing, yet here we are, limping them along with no replacement* in sight. We'll have at least a five year gap in manned space flight capabilities due in part to the shortsightedness of these men, not to mention a space station that is not even complete, yet is shortly due for decommission.

*I hear some of you saying "What about Ares?". Are you talking about the Ares that is going to lift our astronauts into an orbit with a negative perigee? Are you talking about the Ares that cannot lift the Orion module unless they strip out the airbags, toilets, land landing equipment, and a third of the astronauts? Are you talking about the Ares that is going to put the astronauts through the roughest launch environment (thrust oscillation, max-Q, G-forces, acoustics) that manned space flight has ever seen? That Ares?

Or are you talking about the Ares that can't be built in existing factories because it is too big around? Are you talking about the Ares that needs a specially re-inforced launch pad, with thicker concrete driveways, and a new, stronger crawler because it is so heavy the current infrastructure is unable to handle the weight? Are you talking about the Ares that won't be ready to fly until at least 2020? That Ares?

What contests do

[Teancum]

While I know this was intended to be funny, not "insightful", there is a little kernel of truth here. NASA really doesn't have the time or funding to do all of this research themselves.

Still, the point of doing this is due to the fact that there are many in the space exploration "fan clubs" (to use at least one term for the loosely organized groups of various kinds that support spaceflight) that have some pretty interesting ideas, and it would be a shame to throw out some very good ideas while a boring committee of government bureaucrats comes up with some stuff that doesn't really make a difference.

If NASA can get a whole bunch of excellent ideas from a wide variety of sources, perhaps one or two of those ideas can make actual contests. All of the original Centennial Challenges have been wildly successful in terms of leveraging modest amounts of government funding with a whole bunch of private investment to come up with some very useful technologies for NASA to work with in the future. From just a pure fiscal standpoint, creating these contests are an incredible boon for NASA and do several things very well:

• promote NASA as an agency - Seriously, if only for P.R. purposes, all of the contests including the Northrup-Grumman Lunar Landing Challenge and many of the other contests have brought some amazingly positive P.R. for NASA that by itself is perhaps more cost-effective than other P.R. efforts by NASA such as NASA-TV and frankly the public relations office at Johnson Space Center alone.
• Developing folks with skills and talent that NASA needs in the future - I could cite a whole bunch of examples here, but there has been an incredible amount of innovation with all of the recent space prize contests. Essentially a whole new industry has been created out of whole cloth... in some ways mostly out of a response to enter and win these challenges. Even more significant is how these companies are coming back to NASA and working on non-contest contracts... now that they have the experience in making space-related projects.
• Encouraging the growth of the space enthusiasts community - First of all, the contests give something for folks to write about and discuss. When folks are writing about traditional NASA projects (like the Ares I), there will be the hardcore fanbois that will always be ardent supporters of NASA, but there will also be detractors. While the same can be said about the contests, what is exciting with them is that with enough people trying to compete in the contests, there is usually something to write about with all of the contestants involved. Either a new entrant into the contest, a milestone reached by one of the contestants, or perhaps upcoming "competitions" and speculating on how they will be working. More significantly, stuff is getting done.... and that is being talked about as well in usually a very positive manner when somebody "wins" the contest. Often that will even spill over into the mainstream press as well.
• The contests have an end - This may seem a little bit weird, but this is also important from a taxpayer/effective use of money standpoint. Other than a few accountants and managers to oversee the broad operations of the contests as a whole, no particular contest is creating any permanent bureaucracy. The same can't be said about other NASA projects, where for example the Apollo project is still getting funding in 2009. Bureaucracies love to stick around for a very long time, and sometimes even minor projects seem to just last and last forever. Once the contest is over, it is over. Perhaps a follow-up prize can be offered, but those involved in the contest can pack their bags and move on.
• Contests are results oriented - No money changes hands until after the objective has been met. While you might be able to say that perhaps a contest isn't getting enough support and the prize purse should be raised to encourage more participation, ultimately the point is that people won't get p