NASA International Space Settlement Competition (International Finals)
A Facebook 'like' of a picture of me during the NASA International Space Settlement Competition (International Finals) from a couple years ago made me nostalgic. So I decided to write a little memoire of my time there. So here goes...
The night sky will never be the same to me.
After witnessing the International Space Station gliding over Houston’s sky with my bare eyes, I was amazed by the amount of intellect and hard work carrying with that tiny light.
Having been to and competed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center was truly the most inspiring and challenging experience I have ever had. In the first week of August 2013, I went to Houston to participate in NASA’s International Space Settlement Design Competition, where groups of forty-five high school students, from all over the world, had to come up with a fifty-page proposal of a space settlement on Earth’s Moon, to respond to a request for proposal (RFP), in less than three days. (YES, THREE DAYS!)
This insightful journey started in October 2012, the intra-school selection, to the video entry in November, then the UK National Finals at Imperial College in March, and finally the International Finals at Houston in August.
The competition was an intense industry simulation where teams acted as companies to compete against each other for a contract set by NASA’s engineers. Each company was divided into five departments: Operations, Structure, Human Factors, Automation and Finance. Each department had their duties while having some overlapping responsibilities with other departments. Under such limited time constraint, communications among departments were vital. As President of my ‘company’, Grumbo Aerospace, I was able to effectively lead my team to the title of International Champion, by setting a clear timeline, allocating tasks to colleagues according to their strengths and skills, and having a bird’s eye view on the project at all times, making sure ideas and decisions from departments would not crash.
This competition allowed me to have a firsthand experience of how real-life company works. Although we have our individual duties, if we only focus on our job, it is difficult to come up with a complete and comprehensive proposal. We have to work with people, discussing and debating ideas, which allows us to include different perspectives and make better decisions. Working under great pressure foster my understanding of the 90-90 rule - 90% of the work is done in 10% of the time, and the remaining 10% of work needs 90% of the time. The last couple of hours is the most intense, especially after two sleepless days. When the deadline is approaching, I started to see changes in personality and people’s behavior, leading to conflicts among team members. These conflicts, unlike friendly discussions and debates, are unproductive and discouraging people to contribute. To tackle this, I decided to take a big risk; instead of continuing to finish the project inefficiently and ineffectively, I took my company to the IHOP nearby and had a 30-minute brain break. This short recess allowed the team to relax and loosen up, and be more energetic when resumed work.
Besides learning a huge amount of aeronautical and astrophysical knowledge throughout various stages of the competition, I was also able to learn from real-life “rocket scientists” - professors at Imperial College and engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, who were assigned to us as advisors. Their knowledge and experiences are priceless. My most inspiring advisor is Dr. Jack Bacon, who was the chief engineer of the Apollo 13 mission. He described vividly about the problems they came across when the astronauts were stranded in space, and how all the engineers turned the impossible into solutions, by utilizing the very limited resources on board Apollo 13, and eventually brought the astronauts back to earth successfully. His enduring attitude and resilience when came across obstacles inspired me to improve myself constantly and never give up.
This unforgettable experience allowed me to learn how to be resourceful and work efficiently under time pressure, and most importantly, to work with people from different cultures. The biggest challenge I came across while leading the team was the cultural clashes and language barrier. Our team has students representing the US, UK, India, and Pakistan. The diversity of culture in our team led to misunderstanding and poor communication, which developed into low morale within the company. However, through listening and understanding both sides, I was able to resolve most issues between people through negotiation and compromises, and when necessary to make the hard decision in which I believe is the best for the team.
The competition made me aware of the importance of space exploration. I used to think that space development is very far away from our generation and wasting billions on it is rather unproductive. However, I realized that exploring space can bring many benefits to the individuals on earth; every dollar spent on space engineering can bring eight dollars worth of benefits to the global development. Space exploration has been an untold hero to our recent technological development. An example is the cell phone cameras, which were miniaturized in the 90’s by NASA engineers as traditional cameras were too big and heavy to put on space vehicles. Moreover, private companies (such as Boeing, Space X, and Virgin) are ambitiously developing space travel and exploration, its no longer far fetching. It excites me as Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America started building in 2005, and near-earth space travel will be possible within two decades.
This wonderful journey has proved invaluable, teaching me how to be a team leader and team player, and the ability to think holistically and out of the box. No matter what jobs or positions I will be working in the future, I will always be able to draw upon this experience, which made me grow as a person.
Winning the competition was such as rewarding experience, and this is an experience I treasure, one that will never be forgotten.