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Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

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Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#31

Post by pingou »

jtchang wrote: post #6

So many trash comments on the site about how NASA should be "offering more money" or how this is a way for them to "save money" and it is all a scam. Seriously? Any decent hacker attempting this is probably doing it for props. The money is great and provides a good monetary incentive but when it comes down to it I'd wager people would do this for free. Hell a personal tour of NASA and maybe their name in the code mig…

The problem is that these 10.000 $ look cheap regarding the amount of work it requires. I can't find a link but there's several studies showing that people are willing to do a lot of things for free if they like it, but they see it like work if it's paid and they enjoy it less, especially if for a ridiculous sum of money.

I'm pretty sure Wikipedia would have a lot less content if they paid their contributors 1 cent by article.

I think the Nasa should either increase the bounty or make it 0 $.

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#33

Post by Xcelerate »

I always get kind of depressed with these contests and never enter them, because although I feel that I could come up with a solution, I also think there's probably thousands of other people out there working on the challenge and doing it even better than me.

So I never start.

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#35

Post by throwaway2048 »

bostonpete wrote: post #29
rtpg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sure, 10K is small given that it's the ISS slightly unrelated but fun fact: the ISS is the most expensive thing ever built[1](sorry for the silly source, couldn't find the original list). [1]( http://www.filmitown.com/forums/general-chit-chat/37819-top-... )

It seems a bit absurd that the Panama canal isn't on that list given that it cost around $15 billion in present day dollars. And that's with 25,000+ people dying in the process. I can only imagine what the cost would have been if they had take the precautions necessary to prevent most of those deaths.

they actually did take a great deal of precautions in the later American phase, like draining swamps and chemical agents to control mosquito populations. Mosquito born illness was a major factor that sunk the earlier french attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_measures_during_the_con...

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#36

Post by icegreentea »

millerc wrote: post #22
jtchang wrote: post #6

So many trash comments on the site about how NASA should be "offering more money" or how this is a way for them to "save money" and it is all a scam. Seriously? Any decent hacker attempting this is probably doing it for props. The money is great and provides a good monetary incentive but when it comes down to it I'd wager people would do this for free. Hell a personal tour of NASA and maybe their name in the code mig…

I'd like to propose a different perspective into this. In a respectable aerospace organization, a typical effort into such an optimization project would be in the order of 3 mid-to-senior staff, for a duration of 6 months. Consider a loaded rate of $200k/year (remember, overhead makes it much more expensive), and you'll be looking at about $300k for a single tentative. Let's suppose they probably tried no more than 3…

More or less true, but remember that even submitting the winning submission does not carry the same weight of responsibility or liability that it would normally carry at an engineering firm. Your submission doesn't even have to come close to providing an optimal, or even safe solution, and that won't hurt you (beyond not winning) one bit. Validation and testing will no doubt be done by actual fully paid NASA (or whatever space agency) employees, at their usual rates.

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#37

Post by sliverstorm »

icegreentea wrote: post #36
millerc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to propose a different perspective into this. In a respectable aerospace organization, a typical effort into such an optimization project would be in the order of 3 mid-to-senior staff, for a duration of 6 months. Consider a loaded rate of $200k/year (remember, overhead makes it much more expensive), and you'll be looking at about $300k for a single tentative. Let's suppose they probably tried no more than 3…

More or less true, but remember that even submitting the winning submission does not carry the same weight of responsibility or liability that it would normally carry at an engineering firm. Your submission doesn't even have to come close to providing an optimal, or even safe solution, and that won't hurt you (beyond not winning) one bit. Validation and testing will no doubt be done by actual fully paid NASA (or what…

"Crowdsourcing is not a panacea"

- sliverstorm

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#38

Post by sasanrose »

What harm can possibly a person from Iran do to this project, or US, or us citizens or other people from the world, by contributing to this project or other ones on TopCoder?! Ok I understand that you can not sell things to us, because you think that we may misuse them for terrorism (Although real terrorists - not the people - can find what they want easily) but seriously what does contributing to an International project can do anything with politics?

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#39

Post by bjxrn »

millerc wrote: post #22
jtchang wrote: post #6

So many trash comments on the site about how NASA should be "offering more money" or how this is a way for them to "save money" and it is all a scam. Seriously? Any decent hacker attempting this is probably doing it for props. The money is great and provides a good monetary incentive but when it comes down to it I'd wager people would do this for free. Hell a personal tour of NASA and maybe their name in the code mig…

I'd like to propose a different perspective into this. In a respectable aerospace organization, a typical effort into such an optimization project would be in the order of 3 mid-to-senior staff, for a duration of 6 months. Consider a loaded rate of $200k/year (remember, overhead makes it much more expensive), and you'll be looking at about $300k for a single tentative. Let's suppose they probably tried no more than 3…

That 30k is the total prize package. The 1st place prize is still 10k.

More on the prizes here: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=MatchDetails&rd=...

Re: Write code, fix the space station, win $10,000

#40

Post by tripzilch »

DigitalJack wrote: post #4
kevinconroy wrote: post #3

If this is legit, then this is incredibly cool. Having your code run in space is as close as many of us will come to being in space ourselves. Sure, 10K is small given that it's the ISS, but let's be honest, the money is the secondary prize. This is for bragging rights.

I think you would just be providing a table of data for the positioning of the solar cells during an orbit.

Seems like it:

> Your goal (...) is to define the angular position and velocity for each of the joints that connect the solar panels to the station for every point in a 92-minute orbit. Limitations on any solution include making sure the masts for each panel aren't in a shadow more than they need to be, making sure the cycle can be repeated each orbit

Sounds like (if the finalist is deemed good enough and their solution will be used) a lookup-table of numbers will be uploaded, not your actual code running on any actual chips in actual space.

So much for hiding an obfuscated buffer-overflow code execution exploit and taking over a space-station ... pew pew pew!

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