International Space Settlement Design Competition

The International Space Settlement Design Competition, more commonly known as "Spaceset" or "I-SSDC", is an annual competition founded by Anita Gale and Dick Edwards, and is supported (but no longer sponsored) by NASA (as the competition rents several NASA facilities for use during the competition). The competition targets high school students and recreates the experience of working on an aerospace company's proposal team. The teams are asked to envision space colonies in accordance to an RFP (Request for Proposal).

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 wanted to do something related to space. Nobody on the committee knew much about space. However, Evelyn Murray from the Society of Women Engineers knew Anita Gale, who worked on the Space Shuttle program. Letters followed, recommending and expanding ideas, and concluding with a telephone call between Gale 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, that it would be both a design competition and a management simulation game. Gale and Dick Edwards wrote the materials for the game. The first Space Settlement Design Competition was conducted at Ohio State University (between thunderstorms and tornadoes) in August 1984, with about 75 participants. It was wildly successful. Even astronaut Story Musgrave stopped by to watch design presentations.

The Explorers' Science and Engineering Cluster (headed by Brian Archimbaud) was so impressed by this event that they decided to make sure it would continue in some form. Eventually, Dr. Peter Mason and the Space Exploration Post at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, agreed to try it out on a local level. The first SpaceSet (post member Nathan Hawkins came up with the name) was held in 1986. Eighteen SpaceSet competitions were conducted at JPL, with continuing participation by Anita Gale, Dick Edwards, Rob Kolstad, and Dr. Mason. As many as 160 young people participated each year, with a different design challenge each time. The competition's organizers requested space settlement designs in Earth orbit, on Earth's moon, on and in orbit around Mars, and on and in orbit around Venus (including some global atmospheric alterations to make it habitable). One Earth-orbiting settlement was required to be capable of moving to another solar system.

The first annual national competition was organized when SpaceWeek International Executive Director Brian Archimbaud considered that a Space Settlement Design Competition would be appropriate to include in commemorating the 25th anniversary of the first lunar landing, in July 1994. The national event took place July 17 through 19, 1994, in Washington, D.C. Astronauts and cosmonauts recruited as volunteers for this event were so impressed with its educational value, that they insisted that it continue as an annual event.

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