NASA Raises The Stakes: $20,000 Challenge For Designing The Perfect Spacecraft

NASA Raises The Stakes: $20,000 Challenge For Designing The Perfect Spacecraft For Mars

Space enthusiasts are in for a real treat. The prestigious US space agency NASA has offered a $20,000 prize to any person who can come up with the perfect design idea for small science and technological payloads. This could pave the way for scientists to understand how to have the necessary weight for spacecrafts to be balanced enough to enter the Martian atmosphere.

Known as the Mars Balance Mass Challenge, the aim of this endeavour is to create design ideas for small science and technology payloads. These could double as ejectable balance masses on spacecrafts which come into contact with the challenging atmosphere of the red planet.

"NASA is committed to engaging the public, and specifically the maker community through innovative activities like the Mars Balance Mass Challenge," NASA's chief Technologist David Miller has been quoted by the media as saying.

The aim of the payloads is to fulfil dual functions. The first is the performance of science and/or technology functions which will enable scientists to know more about Mars. The second function is to account for the critical necessary weight needed to balance spacecrafts that land on this rocky planet.

The submissions have to be due by November 21 and the announcement regarding the winner will be made within the middle of January in 2015. The winner will be awarded a USD 20,000 cash prize, according to NASA.

The international space agency has also launched a new website. The site is called NASA Solve and it is indicated to be a "great way for members of the public, makers and other citizen scientists to see all NASA challenges and prizes in one location." NASA has announced the commencement of the registration process for the Mars Balance Mass Challenge.

"We want people to get involved in our journey to Mars. This challenge is a creative way to bring innovative ideas into our planning process, and perhaps help NASA find another way to pack more science and technology into a mission," Lisa May, the lead programme executive for the NASA led Mars exploration programme has announced in statement quoted by the media.

The NASA Solve website can be accessed at www.nasa.gov/solve/. It was launched during the World Maker Faire in NY and the aim was to create an outreach campaign that would enable the members of the general public to find solutions for problems encountered by the space agency in its bid to conquer the red planet.

Visitors will also get to see online challenges apart from prize competitions and crowd-sourcing activities designed to stimulate scientific interest and bring in new technology.