NASA Launches New Mars Website, Wants Public Input on Mission
There's now a new Website dedicated to America's efforts to further study and ultimately send humans to Mars -- and get members of the public in on the exploration action: www.nasa.gov/solve/.
Unveiled at the World Maker Faire in New York, the site is part of an outreach campaign the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says will provide chances for the general public to help find solutions related to the space agency's ongoing mission to the Red Planet.
As such, site visitors will be met with online challenges, prize competitions and crowdsourcing activities geared toward an interactive process that has "played an important role in stimulating innovation and helping NASA develop innovative solutions ... and can result in a variety of valuable outcomes ranging from NASA's own immediate use of the solutions, development of new viable aerospace industry vendors and even commercialization of new products," said an agency news release.
The Website will also serve as a primary way members of the public can post their ideas for NASA's Mars Balance Mass Challenge, which seeks design ideas for small science and technology payloads that could perform scientific or technological functions that offer greater insights about Mars, but also serve as easily-ejected masses that could provide the necessary weight to balance spacecraft entering the Martian atmosphere.
Submissions for the contest are due by Nov. 21, with a winner -- who will receive a $20,000 award -- announced in mid-January 2015.
"We want people to get involved in our journey to Mars," Lisa May, lead program executive for NASA's Mars exploration program, said in a statement. "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."
The NASA Solve Website "is a great way for members of the public, makers and other citizen scientists to see all NASA challenges and prizes in one location," said NASA Chief Technologist David Miller. "NASA is committed to engaging the public, and specifically the maker community through innovative activities like the Mars Balance Mass Challenge."
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