The UK Space Design Competition: A Journey

The UK Space Design Competition:

A journey

Editors

Randall S Perry

and

Jen Greenwood

Copyright © UKSDC 2014

First Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ISBN 978-1-326-03966-0

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher or author.

All opinions in this edition are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the UK Space Design Competition or the Space Science Engineering Foundation.

UK Space Design Competition

Published by SSEF, UK registered charity number 1142329

Honorary President: Dr Naim Dangoor

Chair: Dr Randall S Perry

Board Members: Dr Elizabeth Luthman, Dr Daniel Went, Elizabeth Sinclair-House, Dr Harold Soh, Christian Sweeting

Administrative Director: Jen Greenwood

Acknowledgements

It seems barely adequate to say thank you to all the contributors for taking time from their busy schedules to make this book possible. To Anne Tranter for endless hours of editing.

Contact Information

general@uksdc.org

Contact editor

Jen Greenwood

j.greenwood@uksdc.org

We are grateful for the support of the UK Space Agency.

Preface

The idea for this book was first mooted in Autumn 2013. We wanted to produce a publication that would be useful not only to any student who was considering taking part in the UK Space Design Competition but also to their teachers and to the volunteer technical advisors, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and judges. As it developed, we envisioned a wider audience of anyone who was interested in space, education or ways of engaging with young people.

For this wider remit, we needed a number of authors from a wide field of topics and the contributors who made this book possible are based all over the world. The chapters they have written reflect this diversity and we believe this adds to their interest; consequently articles will have American, Australian and British English. We are very grateful to all of them for them for generously sharing their expertise, areas of interest and experiences.

We only recently decided to try to publish the book in time for this year’s finals in March 2014. This being so, we would like to add extra thanks to the contributors for taking time from their very busy schedules to write and submit their articles within a very short timescale. Without their cooperation, this publication could not have existed. 

Perry and Greenwood

Introduction

This book grew out of the UK Space Design Competition (UK SDC) and so its prime audience is likely to be those connected in any way with that event: students, teachers, family, volunteers, future competitors and people from industry. We would also like to think that it would be of interest to anyone concerned with education, science, space, engineering or the future of our planet. To this end we have included selected chapters on issues in science that we think might be of wider interest. Each of the chapters in this book represents the personal view of the writer and is not intended to reflect the views of the organization or indeed of the editors. They do, however, give an idea of the wide range of people, personalities and expertise associated with the competition and the areas of space, science and education in general. We are aiming at a diverse audience but the UK SDC celebrates diversity by bringing together students from a variety of educational and social backgrounds to compete in an enjoyable, challenging competition that requires teamwork and multi-disciplinary skills.

The UK SDC began in 2009 as a fairly small, London-based competition designed to send a team from the United Kingdom to compete in the international finals (Spaceset) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Since then it has expanded into a series of year-round events that include one-day ‘micro’ competitions for those aged 11 to14 and one or two-day regional competitions for 15 to 18 year olds that feed into the national finals, currently held at Imperial College London. Starting in fall 2014, there will be one day regional competitions in Scotland and Wales as well as in various parts of England. This means that students throughout the country have a chance of entering the competition and winning the very coveted trip to the Johnson or Kennedy Space Center and a place in the international finals, where they will participate with teams from around the world. However, we would like to cover even more of the United Kingdom so if, after reading this book, you should feel inspired to run a Space Design Competition of your own, we have provided information to help you. Several schools have run inter-school competitions just for the fun of it.

The competition is based on teams, organized into companies, providing a response to a Request For Proposal (RFP) for the design of a settlement in our solar system. Each RFP is different: the settlement could be on any planetary surface or cycling a planetary body; it may be designed for a specific purpose such as research or mining; its population could be scientists, engineers, families or any mixture of these and so on. The circumstances will each have their own technical, scientific, ecological and social challenges and the student teams provide a response to these by eventually making a formal presentation to a group of expert judges.

In a regional competition, the winning team is awarded a place in the weekend long national finals held at the Earth Science and Engineering Department, Imperial College, London. Other teams are selected from video entries from schools who respond to the RFP sent out nationally to schools and available on the UK SDC website. The video entries take time to prepare and act as a filter; only students really serious about entering spend the time and energy necessary to complete the video entry. The school teams are split into companies of about 48 to 50 students. Each company has students from different schools. Twelve students are chosen from, and by, the winning company to go to the international finals in the United States. It is evident that getting to this stage requires not only academic excellence but also the ability to be respected by the rest of the team for their contribution to the winning company.

The competition is an industry simulation. The students take on one of a number of roles, for example as company president or in the fields of marketing, engineering, human operations or administration. The company will then decide on its response to the RFP and design their settlement. Just as in industry, each company submits their proposed design in the form of a presentation and, again as in industry, the winning company will be decided on the merits of that presentation.

Although this is a competition for school students, it is not school. A great deal of its merit, effectiveness and importance stems from that fact. It is student-led and adults are there in a purely advisory and supportive capacity. Experts can provide technical information if asked. Teachers do not participate in the project; their primary role is to bring necessary supplies of chocolate and pizza! The Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) keep a watchful eye on their companies, but it is the students who make all of the decisions and who are responsible for everything including time management, who takes which roles, how to overcome problems inherent in the RFP, what the design will be and who will make the presentation. For most students this is a completely new experience as they are used to being guided and led by adults. Designing a viable settlement in space and presenting it in a lucid and persuasive way in only a day and a half would be a difficult task for anyone and yet every year we are amazed by the way in which these students rise to the challenge. They throw themselves into it whole-heartedly, going without sleep, barely stopping to eat, immersing themselves in new information and coming up with imaginative and creative solutions while often acting in mature ways in the face of problems.

This is a competition based on science and engineering and the students gain much information in these fields. They also learn a great deal about the subjects themselves, what is involved in them and how they interact. One of the most important things they learn is a new approach and a new way of thinking. They realize that scientists do not know all the answers and that this is not even what science is about. It is about searching for the answers and accepting the best explanation available at the time, an approach that is transferrable to any subject.

In essence this is a real world simulation. Students learn about the importance of deadlines, communication, teamwork, self-promotion, marketing and presentation. All of the tasks that they perform are those that people working in industry will be performing and for which they will be paid. The competition is set 60 years in the future and the Foundation Society, a mythical company, requests the RFP. Even though participants employ new and innovative ideas, the solutions must be based on engineering solutions that are currently possible or likely to be possible in the future. The benefits to any business or industry of a potential employee having had experience of using their own initiative in a team, working on real problems, finding solutions and justifying and taking responsibility for their decisions, cannot be underestimated.

The benefits to education generally are also incalculable. Since the adults involved are non-participants, and the students do all of the work and make all of the decisions, this is education in its original and literal sense. It provides the environment for a ‘leading out’ of knowledge, skill and personal qualities from the students and calls forth the best from them. While working such long hours can be stressful, participants overcome problems and present projects that are truly amazing. It shows us what high quality, complex and creative thought some students are capable of, given the right conditions.

The students themselves gain enormously from the experience. It challenges and stretches them more than many have experienced before and their ability to meet those challenges increases their self- esteem and confidence. On a practical level, students have found that taking part in the UK SDC can provide very positive material for applications to further education or employment, or for discussion at interviews. What they learn about meeting deadlines and handling stress can be useful to them in the run-up to exams. But first and foremost, it is very exciting and a great deal of fun! The close contact with other students from other schools brings like-minded students together. Many stay in contact after several years through Facebook or emails. The 12 students that go to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Johnson or Kennedy Space Center then meet students from around the world. It remains to be seen, but some of these friendships may last a lifetime. The competition breaks down gender, social and cultural barriers, which in itself simulates the scientific, engineering and international company environments.

This is a very exciting time for science and space exploration with the discovery of mudstone on Mars by the rover Curiosity suggesting ancient standing water on Mars and the finding of several planets orbiting a star similar to our own sun. We have discovered more than 700 planets near our solar system in the last 24 years. There may be an attempt to send people to Mars and there will be a Mars sample return mission in the next few years. We will need high quality scientists and engineers in order to further the progress we are making. The UK SDC is designed to raise the profile of science and engineering in schools and to enable students to see that this is an exciting, developing area, which will need people with a wide variety of skills. Ultimately, when funds are available, we would like to provide scholarships for promising students in this field but we hope the UK SDC will continue to be an informative, revelatory, challenging and rewarding experience for all those involved. It certainly has been for us.

Chapter 1

History Of The UK Space Design

Competition

by Daniel Went

The UK Space Design Competition (UK SDC) can trace its origins back to May 2005 when Dr. Randall Perry, then a visiting research scientist at Imperial College London, invited two American aerospace engineers, Anita Gale and Dick Edwards, on a llama packing expedition into the Pasayten Wilderness of North America. During that expedition and others that followed it, Randall heard the two engineers describe the format of their International Space Settlement Design Competition (SPACESET) and the way in which it had helped to educate and inspire thousands of students from all over the world since its 1994 inauguration. The potential value of the SPACESET competition to British secondary school students was immediately apparent to Randall, who returned home to consider ways of getting British students more involved in it.

A few years after these early conversations, Randall met Dick and Anita again, this time by chance at the Duck Brand Inn in the Washington town of Winthrop. It was during this meeting that Randall suggested the idea of a United Kingdom semi-final for the SPACESET competition, which would allow British students to compete for a place in the international final. At the time, semi-final competitions were already being held in India and Australia, and the organisers were delighted with the idea of adding the United Kingdom to the list. They therefore eagerly accepted Randall’s proposition.

Turning the dream of a United Kingdom semi-final competition into a reality proved to be easier said than done. The first semi-final competition, called the UK Space Settlement Design Competition, took place in 2009 and was primarily funded by Youth Exploring Science. This was an organisation Randall set up with Dr Michael Perring specifically for that purpose, with Elizabeth Sinclair-House and Christian Sweeting both being added to the board shortly after its formation.

The initial hope was that the UK Space Settlement Design Competition would involve an industry simulation game similar to the SPACESET competition held in America but, at this early stage in the competition’s history, the funding required to do this simply wasn’t available. Instead, the inaugural competition was essay-based, with entrants being asked to answer three challenging questions relating to space exploration and engineering. The school that won this competition, Riddlesdown Collegiate, was awarded a place at the 16th International Space Settlement Design Competition held in Houston, Texas in the summer of 2009.

By the end of 2009 the aforementioned financial difficulties had led Youth Exploring Science to break up. However, the stories brought back from Houston by Riddlesdown Collegiate inspired some of its former board members, including Randall, Elizabeth and Christian, to try to run the competition again in 2010. Funding for the 2010 competition was tight but, thanks to a number of private donors and a grant from the UK Space Agency, the situation was not as bad as it had been before. This made an industry simulation competition, of the type Randall had first envisioned after talking to Dick and Anita in America, a possibility for the first time.

The 2010 UK Space Settlement Design Competition was the first competition to take the form that is recognised today. In total 160 students from 12 schools took part, the final designs for an Earth-to-Mars transfer space station being reviewed by a panel of expert judges including Jeremy Curtis from the UK Space Agency and Anita Gale herself, who had flown over from America especially to take part. Feedback on the 2010 competition was tremendously positive, with many competitors claiming it had been the experience of a lifetime. The organiser’s spirits were further boosted when the United Kingdom contingent emerged victorious at the 17th International Space Settlement Design Competition held later that year!

In order to build upon the momentum generated by the 2010 competition, a new umbrella organisation was required. This organisation turned out to be the Space Science & Engineering Foundation, which was set up in London in 2010. The founding members of the Space Science and Engineering Foundation (SSEF) were Randall Perry, Christian Sweeting and Elizabeth Sinclair-House, all former members of Youth Exploring Science, and Daniel Went, Harold Soh and Elizabeth Luthman, three PhD students at Imperial College London who had volunteered to help out with the 2010 competition.

The next few years saw the competition go from strength to strength as more people got involved in the organisation of the competition and more teams applied to take part. A change of name from the long and wordy ‘UK Space Settlement Design Competition’ to the simpler ‘UK Space Design Competition’ was accompanied by rapid growth and development of the competition format. The most significant of these developments was the running, in 2012, of a smaller ‘regional’ competition at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales. This competition, which was organised by Cardiff schoolteacher Imran Farzal, acted as a feeder for the main competition held in London and was tremendously successful. By the start of the 2014 United Kingdom final competition the SSEF’s board had grown to include Fiona Larner, Jian Heseri and former competitor Joseph Dudley, in addition to the six original founders. Marit Mohn also served on the board for a time, though she resigned due to personal commitments in early 2014.

For the 2014 competition, the SSEF had two key objectives. The first was to expand Cardiff’s regional competition format into more areas of the country and the second was to get younger students involved in the competition experience. The first objective was met by introducing five new regional competitions in Southwark, South Kensington, Westminster, Oxford and Wakefield. The second was met by using funding from the UK Space Agency to couple ‘micro’ competitions with the regional events. These micro competitions were aimed at students in school years 7-9 and condensed all of the personal and scientific challenges of the main competition (and its regional counterparts) into a shorter timetable better suited to the age group. In total it is estimated that these regional and micro competitions allowed over 700 students to go through the industry simulation experience in the 2013-14 academic year.

With the UK SDC currently going from strength to strength, let us now pause to consider the foundations of the SPACESET competition upon which the UKSDC is based. It all started in 1983, when plans were being made by the Boy Scouts of America for the 1984 National Exploring Conference. The steering group for the Science and Engineering Cluster, Brian Archimbaud, decided it would be a good idea to include something relating to space and got in touch with Anita Gale, who worked on the Space Shuttle program, for help. Letters followed, recommending and expanding ideas, and concluding with a telephone call between Anita in California and Rob Kolstad, a member of the steering group, in Texas. During that conversation they brainstormed and created the basic structure of the event and decided that it would be both a design competition and a management simulation game. Anita and volunteer-for-many-things Dick Edwards wrote the materials for the game and the first Space Settlement Design Competition was conducted at Ohio State University in August 1984.

The Explorers’ Science and Engineering Cluster was so impressed by this event that they decided to make sure it would continue in some form. At first this took the form of additional local competitions held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, but this then expanded to a national (and later, international) level when Brian Archimbaud considered that a Space Settlement Design Competition would be an appropriate way of commemorating the 25th anniversary of the first lunar landing in July 1994.

Following the success of this event, sponsorship by The Boeing Company made the continuation of annual International Space Settlement Design Competitions possible. Mark Shaw from Brisbane, Australia, first suggested the idea of a semi-finalist competition. In 2004, advisors of a finalist team from India asked if a competition could be conducted in Asia too. Within months, Anita and Dick along with Abhishek Agarwal in India had developed procedures for the first ever semi-finalist competition, which was held in December 2004. Mark Shaw assembled a committee that conducted the first Australian semi-finalist competition in January 2007 and Randall Perry of the United Kingdom followed suit a couple of years later. The rest, as has already