NASA space game
The NASA space game (Original: NASA Game) is a well-known business game that was widely used in the mid-1970s and gained great popularity.
The authors and the origin of the game are not known. The game instructions and the game sheet are freely distributed in many specialist books , seminar documents and on the Internet . The NASA game was first published in 1970 by JW Pfeiffer and JE Jones.
The NASA space game is now considered a classic among role and simulation games and is mainly used by sociologists , educators and psychologists, but also by personality and management trainers in appropriate seminars to deal with role behavior , group behavior , group dynamic processes and interpersonal communication and the To illustrate related topics such as personality and rhetoric , leadership style and leadership quality , teamwork , motivation , organization , integration and decision-making processes and then to reflect on and discuss them with the participants .
initial situation
A spaceship crash-landed on the moon. It was supposed to meet its mother ship, which is 200 kilometers away on the bright (sun-facing) side of the moon. The crash landing completely destroyed the spaceship. The crew's survival depends on whether they can reach the mother ship. Only 15 items of the equipment remained undamaged.
Participants are asked to select the equipment that is most important for covering the 200 kilometers to the location of their mother ship. Your chance of survival depends on whether you can choose the right equipment for a lunar expedition in this game.
task
The players' task is to rank the listed items, placing the item on the first place on the list that is considered most important for the march to the mothership and the second most important on the second place and so on further. The least important item is ranked 15th.
The aim is to find the right ranking, both in a single solution and in a team solution, which was actually developed by a team of experts at NASA and which is a binding solution for this game.
Individual solution and team solution
The game master forms teams of four to six, sometimes ten people in advance. The members of each team should first set up their personal ranking of the items of equipment for themselves, i.e. uninfluenced by the other team members. Each participant has about 15 minutes to do this. Then each team has to create a common group ranking. A team usually has around 45 minutes to do this.
Various rules of the game should be observed, such as friendly interaction with one another or the consideration of the opinion of all team members when making the decision, and that the decision should be made as unanimously as possible.
Objects
For the following items of equipment - here in the most common order on the game sheet - the participants should first determine their own ranking and then again within the group a common ranking:
- matches
- Food concentrate
- Fifty yards of nylon rope
- Parachute silk
- Portable heater
- Two 100-kilogram tanks of oxygen
- Two pistols, .45 caliber
- Dry milk
- Star atlas
- self-inflating liferaft
- Magnetic compass
- 20 liters of water
- Signal flares
- First aid kit with hypodermic needles
- Solar powered VHF transmitter / receiver
Sample solution
The sample solution shown below is actually said to have been developed by several teams of NASA experts in the 1960s. In addition to the respective ranking, there is a short comment by the NASA experts on the assessment and classification of the respective item.
| Objects | Rank | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| matches | 15th | Little to no use on the moon. |
| Magnetic compass | 14th | Probably no polarized magnetic field on the moon, so useless. |
| Portable heater / stove | 13 | Only necessary on the dark side of the moon. |
| Dry milk | 12 | Food, drinkable mixed with water. |
| Two .45 caliber pistols | 11 | Drive tests could be made with them. |
| Signal flares | 10 | Emergency signal when you are in sight. |
| Self-inflating life raft | 9 | CO 2 bottles (for inflating the raft) as a drive to overcome gaps etc. |
| Parachute silk | 8th | Sun protection |
| First aid kit with hypodermic needles | 7th | Valuable tablets or injections. |
| Fifty yards of nylon rope | 6th | Useful for guiding the injured and for climbing. |
| Solar powered VHF transmitter / receiver | 5 | Emergency signal transmitter: communication with the mother ship may be possible. |
| Food concentrate | 4th | Daily food requirement. |
| Star atlas | 3 | One of the most important means of determining directions. |
| 20 liters of water | 2 | Replaces fluid loss caused by sweating. |
| Two 100-kilogram tanks of oxygen | 1 | Necessary for breathing. |
Rating System
In order to be able to compare and evaluate the different results better, the difference between the assigned ranking and the correct ranking is calculated for each item and noted as an absolute number.
- Example: A participant has placed the matches in 10th place and the star atlas in 6th place. The correct solution is 15th place for the matches and 3rd place for the star atlas. The difference between the assessment and the correct solution is therefore 5 or 3 (matches: 15 - 10 = 5 and star atlas: 6 - 3 = 3).
Finally, all differences are added up, and the lower the sum of the 15 differences, the better the solution is to be evaluated.
This evaluation system is used in the same way to evaluate the group solutions.
Sometimes this rating system is also used in a game variant for a comparison between the individual solution and the team solution. In this case it can happen that some participants - influenced by the additional evaluation system - define new, undesired goals for the course of the game.
Modifications
The game situation described can be modified in an equivalent form; a frequently described alternative is the desert game . The fictitious context is the emergency landing of an airplane in a desert. The surviving passengers have no chance of saving themselves from the desert because all civilization is not within walking distance. In turn, the group possesses a number of items (parachutes, signal pistol, limited water supply, salt tablets, warm clothing ...), which must be ranked according to their importance for the survival of the group.
Individual evidence
- ^ Pfeiffer, JW / Jones, JE: A handbook of structured experiences for human relations training, Vol. I + II. University Associates Press, Iowa City 1970.