Category Archives: Contests and Games

Contests and Games, Pluto and beyond, Space participation

Public invited to suggest names for features on Pluto and Charon

March 24, 2015 TopSpacer

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft gets closer each day to Pluto and the fly-by on July 14th. The New Horizons mission, the SETI Institute and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) have opened a public participation program in which you offer an addition to a list of names that will be used for features on Pluto and its moon Charon.

The SETI Institute has opened the Our Pluto website where you can submit your suggested names : Public Asked to Help Name Features on Pluto – SETI Institute.

[ Update: Here’s a Google Hangout discussion with SETI Institute scientist Mark Showalter and New Horizons mission member Cathy Olkin about the Our Pluto program:

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The deadline for the name submissions is April 7, 2015.

Here is a statement today from the IAU that lays out the boundaries for what names will be accepted.:

Campaign for Public Participation in Naming Features on Pluto

In partnership with NASA’s New Horizons mission and the SETI Institute, the IAU is endorsing a campaign that will allow the public to participate in naming newly discovered features on Pluto and its satellites. It is expected that many new features will be discovered in the upcoming flyby of Pluto and will be available for naming. The public is invited to suggest names within the designated IAU themes for these celestial bodies.

Pluto retains a unique position in the hearts and minds of many. Pluto is a remote and enigmatic world that resides at the edge of the Solar System, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt, where it is one among many similar dwarf planets, although Pluto remains the largest discovered to date.

On 14 July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe will fly past Pluto, offering the first close-up look at this small, distant world and its largest satellite, Charon. These denizens of the outer Solar System will, at long last, be transformed from mysterious, hazy bodies into worlds with distinct features.

In celebration of this historic occasion, the IAU is proud to endorse a campaign that will allow members of the public to participate in naming newly imaged and identified features on the surfaces of Pluto and its natural satellites.

This naming campaign is a partnership between the NASA’s New Horizons project, the SETI Institute and the IAU.

You are invited to visit the website ourpluto.seti.org, where you can vote for the names that you think should be used to identify the most prominent features on both Pluto and Charon. You can also suggest additional names. These must be associated with a set of accepted themes set out by the IAU’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) related to mythology and the literature and history of exploration:

Pluto:

Names for the Underworld from the world’s mythologies.
Gods, goddesses, and dwarfs associated with the Underworld.
Heroes and other explorers of the Underworld.
Writers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Scientists and engineers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Charon:

Destinations and milestones of fictional space and other exploration.
Fictional and mythological vessels of space and other exploration.
Fictional and mythological voyagers, travellers and explorers.

Styx:

River gods.

Nix:

Deities of the night.

Kerberos:

Dogs from literature, mythology and history.

Hydra:

Legendary serpents and dragons.

Please note, however, that votes for other themes will not be taken into account, incl. the following, since these themes have already been used on Mercury, Venus and Mars:

Space missions and spacecraft names.
Authors, artists, directors and producers of the fiction of exploration.
Explorers of the Earth, air and seas.

The campaign ends on 7 April 2015, after which the New Horizons team will sort through the names and submit their recommendations to the IAU. The IAU will have the final decision on how the names are used.

Contests and Games, Simulators, Software

Buzz Aldrin’s “Space Program Manager – Road to the Moon” now available on iPad

March 14, 2015 TopSpacer

Buzz Aldrin says at WhoSay, “My game – Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager is finally available on iPad!”

From game software house and publisher Slitherine Ltd:

“Exploration is wired into our brains. If we can see the horizon, we want to know what’s beyond.” (Buzz Aldrin – US astronaut, member of Apollo 11 mission)

Since the PC release last October, engineers from developer Polar Motion have not been sitting on their hands. A MAC version, community contest, and several updates have transformed the fragile spaceship into a powerful rocket able to reach the stars. But exploration is the driving force of the team and they’ve just set up a booster that will let them land on a brand new platform: the iPad. Utilizing all of the knowledge developed during these months, this adaptation includes the very latest 1.4.0 update – released last week – for a safe and comfortable first space walk on tablet.

All of the elements that seduced PC players have been implemented in this adaptation. 3 types of campaigns including the Race to the Moon between the US and the USSR, a sandbox mode, historical and what-if space programs, and realistic management tools come together for a nerve-racking and inspiring experience as the head of a space agency. Allocating funds to programs could look simple on paper, but players will have to make sure that there is not a single dollar wasted in their global space supremacy plan.

Risk-takers will set foot on the Moon first. Fool-hardy players though, will see their spaceship exploding before reaching our satellite…

Today iPad owners can also participate in this thrilling yet dangerous adventure. Polar Motion have worked on the controls and the optimization to ensure this platform is perfectly adapted to this space odyssey.

Get more information on Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager from its iTunes page.

Contests and Games, Education, Rocketry

‘Team America Rocketry Challenge’ – thousands of students participate in rocketry competition

March 7, 2015 TopSpacer

An announcement from the Aerospace Industries Association about the annual Team America Rocketry Challenge:

Thousands of students participate in world’s
largest rocketry competition

The Team America Rocketry Challenge launches into
qualifying rounds for the 2015 contest

Arlington, Va. – Nearly 4,000 middle and high school students across the country are gearing up for the 2015 Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), the aerospace and defense industry’s flagship program to inspire young people to explore careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). This year, close to 700 teams representing 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are designing and building model rockets as they contest to qualify for the national finals scheduled for Saturday, May 9 in The Plains, VA.

Structured to emulate the aerospace industry’s engineering design process, TARC challenges teams to design and build a model rocket that can travel to a height of 800 feet and back within 46 to 48 seconds. Each rocket will carry one raw egg that must return safely to the ground undamaged. Scores are determined by how close the rockets come to the required height and time; damaged eggs disqualify flights. To encourage ingenuity and creativity, students are challenged with new design and flight requirements each year.

Sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, the National Association of Rocketry and 27 industry partners, the contest aims to strengthen U.S. student engagement with STEM. “TARC has evolved from a one-time celebration of flight to an established and globally-recognized STEM education program,” said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. “We’re confident that the contest will continue to inspire students to advance their studies in science and math, and eventually consider career opportunities in the aerospace and defense industry.”

This year’s contest has attracted a wide variety of American youth including 41 all-girl teams, several teams utilizing 3-D printers to develop rocket components, a marching band and six Boy Scout troops. Teams have until March 30 to launch and submit their qualifying flight scores. The top 100 scoring teams will advance to the National Finals.

Participants compete for scholarships and prizes totaling more than $60,000 and the title of champions of the world’s largest student rocketry competition. The winning team will also travel to the Paris International Air Show in June courtesy of the Raytheon Company to compete in the International Rocketry Challenge. The American team will face off against teams from the United Kingdom and France in hopes of claiming the gold.

For more information about the Team America Rocketry Challenge, please visit www.rocketcontest.org. TARC is made possible by the generous support of our industry sponsors listed below:

Diamond Sponsor: The Raytheon Company

Platinum Sponsors: Lockheed Martin Corporation and Thales USA

Gold Sponsor: Microsemi Corporation

Silver Sponsors: Accenture, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Aurora Flight Sciences, The Boeing Company, Cubic Corporation, Elbit Systems of America , Embraer Aircraft Holding, GE Aviation, Harris Corporation, Honeywell Aerospace, Iron Mountain, Kaman Aerospace, L-3 Communications Corporation, LMI Aerospace, Micro-Coax, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Parker Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Rolls Royce North America, RTI International Metals, Space Exploration Technologies, United Technologies Corporation, and Woodward, Inc.

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Here’s a video from last year’s competition:

Contests and Games, Space Arts, Space participation

Enterprise in Space announces orbiter design contest winners

February 3, 2015 TopSpacer

An announcement from the National Space Society:

Enterprise in Space Announces Orbiter Design Contest Winners

Press Release: February 3rd 2015: Enterprise In Space (EIS), a project of the National Space Society, is excited to announce the winners of the Enterprise in Space Orbiter Design Contest. The EIS project will take the Grand Prize winning design, which is a visualization of a science fiction concept, and make it science fact. EIS will do this by building the winning design and sending it into Earth orbit as the first real spacecraft bearing the name Enterprise. This mission is also unique in that it will carry more than 100 student experiments into space and back.

Enterprise_In_Space5-1024x635[1] Grand Prize Winner by Stanley Von Medvey

The Grand Prize winning entry was submitted by Stanley Von Medvey, a concept artist who grew up in Chicago and currently resides in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Von Medvey draws inspiration from the fields of aerospace and science. When asked why he entered the contest, Von Medvey responded, “I have a deep love for space exploration. Participation in spaceflight experiments as a student was formative, so I’d love to contribute to another young person’s learning in a similar way.”

First Prize Winner by Steven Pestana

The First Prize winner is Steven Pestana, a college senior at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona studying geology and physics with plans to pursue a career in planetary and space science research and exploration. Pestana was motivated to entered the contest in order to “support science education through the EIS project.”

NSSJohnCortesISO4.JPG-1024x576[1] Second Prize Winner by John Cortes

The Second Prize winner is John Cortes, a first-year graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering. Originally from Colombia, Cortes migrated to the United States at the age of ten. On entering the contest, Cortes told EIS that “I am a firm believer in educating our youth on the potential benefits of space exploration. So much of our current technology has come from the space programs around the world, it’s only right that we continue on this path. I entered a design because I really enjoy designing spacecraft and this was a perfect opportunity to fulfill a dream of seeing one of my designs come to life.”

“The Enterprise in Space team and I want to thank all the people who sent in their wonderful and imaginative science fiction inspired ship designs from all over the world,” said EIS Founder Shawn Case. “It was nice to see entries from so many artistic and engineering perspectives.”

This contest constitutes the first phase of the Enterprise In Space project, whose mission is to design, build, launch, orbit, re-enter, and tour a satellite that will carry more than 100 competitively-selected student experiments into space and back. It was an open international contest seeking science fiction inspired spacecraft designs. This was followed by a public vote to identify the most popular designs submitted to the contest. The final step of the selection process was an evaluation of each design by a panel of expert judges.

Judging the contest were EIS Contest Manager Jim Plaxco, EIS Chief Engineer Fred Becker, Terminal Velocity Aerospace CEO Dominic DePasquale, SNG Studio owner Steve Neill, Consulting Senior Illustrator Andrew Probert, International Association of Astronomical Artists President Jon Ramer, and The Light Works CEO Tobias Richter.

With respect to the judging process, Jim Plaxco stated that “the judges evaluated the design submissions based on their engineering practicality, originality, and design aesthetics. We debated the merits of the various designs and in the end it took us two rounds of voting to arrive at a consensus.” The winning designs can be seen at www.enterpriseinspace.org/winner/

The next phase of the design process is to have an aerospace engineering firm create the necessary engineering drawings and specifications from the winning entry. Follow the progress of the historic EIS project – from winning entry to engineering design to construction and flight – at www.enterpriseinspace.org.

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About Enterprise In Space (EIS): Enterprise In Space is a first-of-its-kind publicly funded grassroots space project. The project will fly an orbiter with 100+ student experiments into space and then have it return to Earth. It is an educational project of the National Space Society, a non-profit organization. All contributions are tax-free and its wesite is www.enterpirseinspace.org

About National Space Society (NSS): NSS is an independent non-profit educational membership organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. NSS is widely acknowledged as the preeminent citizen’s voice on space, with over 50 chapters in the United States and around the world. The Society publishes Ad Astra magazine, an award-winning periodical chronicling the most important developments in space. Its website is www.nss.org

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Here is a video overview of the Enterprise in Space program:

Contests and Games, Education, Space participation

Mission to Mars 2049: A family board game

February 2, 2015 TopSpacer 1 Comment

The crowd-sourcing campaign to fund production of the board game Mission to Mars 2049 has now exceeded its primary goal and is aiming for stretch goals: Mission to Mars 2049: A Family Board Game – Indiegogo.

Mission to Mars 2049 is a family board game that is set in the near future. In this game you are in control of a human colony settled on Mars (there can be up to four of them) and your objective is to build a water extraction station on top of the Martian Polar Ice Cape before any other player does. In order to do that, you will need to have a strategy for acquiring resources and building your colony faster than anyone else.

This video gives an overview of the game: