Winning Entries in the NSS Enterprise in Space Orbiter Design Contest

I previously wrote about my role as orbiter design contest manager for the National Space Society Enterprise in Space Orbiter Design Contest in the posts Voting Open For Enterprise In Space Orbiter Design Contest and Enterprise Orbiter Design Contest.

The objective of Enterprise in Space is to design, build, launch, operate, and return to Earth a spaceship (satellite) that will host 100 student experiments. The spacecraft will remain in orbit approximately one week during which time the experiments are expected to complete their tasks. It really is a unique project. The biggest hurdle is funding as all the project costs will be covered via donations. This includes design costs, construction costs, experiment flight costs, launch costs, etc. Note that while student experiment flight costs are covered, the costs of the experiments themselves are not covered. Two ways in which I've contributed to the project to date have been by 1) accepting an invitation to join the Enterprise in Space Board of Advisors and 2) agreeing to serve on a volunteer basis as the orbiter design contest manager.

And now I can share the identity of the three winners of the orbiter design contest. It took two rounds of voting for we judges to identify three winning entries. Judging the contest were myself; Fred Becker (EIS Chief Engineer); Dominic DePasquale (CEO of Terminal Velocity Aerospace); Steve Neill (owner of SNG Studio); Andrew Probert (Consulting Senior Illustrator); Jon Ramer (President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists); and Tobias Richter (CEO of Light Works). We could have selected the three winning entries on the first ballot but the voting rules I established required that in order to win, each entry had to get 62% of the vote for that category: Grand Prize, First Prize, Second Prize. This extra hurdle helped to insure a consensus for each of the winning entries. Yes it meant more work and more discussion but as a consequence I'm confident that we selected the three best contest entries.

The contest's Grand Prize winner is Stanley Von Medvey who by profession is a concept artist. Now I actually know Stanley and was grateful that he created a promotional video for the 2010 International Space Development Conference web site for which I was serving as webmaster. Sorry Stanley but because of this you did not get the Grand Prize vote from me even though I thought that your entry was the best design.

The First Prize winner is Steven Pestana, a senior at California State Polytechnic University and the Second Prize winner is John Cortes, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.

To see all the winning entries and to read the press release announcing the winners head on over to www.enterpriseinspace.org/winner/. You may also want to consider making a donation to support the project.

For my part, not only do I look forward to the day that I can witness the launch of the NSS Enterprise Orbiter, but I am also most curious to see what types of experiments the students of the world come up with.

Ad Astra, Jim

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015 at 2:53 pm and is filed under National Space Society, Space Art.