Thanks!

But mistake #2 has been to attempt to create a bunch of socio-cultural-psychological-etc. meaning in space-related activities which are ultimately nothing more than unrealistic fantasies (and occasionally outright scams). this is something that both public and private agencies have been guilty of. When these schemes inevitably fizzle out, then the cultural capital that they attempted to create is lost — if not outright reversed. So I would argue that a team which has masterful social outreach, inspirational messages, participatory involvement, etc. — but is ultimately based on nothing more than a bunch of technical and financial piffle — is not actually doing the development of space any favors. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So I would suggest that a scorecard should first account for the technical and financial prospects of the team, and only then should it take into account the social factors. Personally, I’d suggest a formula that looks something like this:

Technical Score “T” (0% – 100%): 50% financial, 20% rover, 20% overall completion, 10% industry connections
Social Score “S” (0% – 100%):1/3rd social savvy, 1/3rd inspiration, 1/3rd participation
Combined score: T + (T * S)

This would ensure that teams which have no technical or financial merit are not erroneously awarded social merit.

This has to be the finest response to a critique that I’ve ever read. I predict big things in your future, with the whole world watching. Great job.

Bennett

I gave the creation of our scorecard serious consideration over a long period of time. Initially, I had a much more simple set of metrics like you suggest here, but after careful consideration, I concluded something different was in order:

This competition is not just a technical competition. It’s not really about launching a cheap rover to the moon, making some tracks and sending video, and then collecting 20 million dollars. The spirit of the competition is to provide a springboard both in proving the commercial concept of space exploration, and putting space exploration back into the minds and hearts of people. If it was about the prize, there are certainly easier ways to get 20 million dollars. Sending rovers to other worlds is not new either.

The competition is designed to be more than that.

We’ve made a major mistake the last 35 years in turning space exploration from an inspiring and exciting set of events into a sterile set of engineering and funding goals. This is just not good enough. As a people, we deserve to be inspired by the exploration of space and together should want to push the limits of possibilities.

While I believe that tracking it on technical merits shouldn’t be the point, it is certainly something we can do. We’ve had a lot of suggestions and we’ve decided to provide more visualisations to the large amount of data we’ve collected. As you’ll see later in the week(hopefully, might be early next week), we’re going to be including several visual representations that will include a weighted score on funding and engineering just like you suggest. Mostly we’ve had requests to see the score category breakdowns by team so we can see where improvements need to be made or where our data might be inaccurate

Thanks again for you comments. Sparking a discussion was really the point and I’m thrilled that you’re willing to discuss it out in the open.