Moon Landing Exercise

Moon Landing Exercise Join your group! Read the “Situation” description Individually rank the 15 “intact” items, 1 being the most important and 15 being the least essential In your group, discuss and arrive at a “group” ranking of the 15 items.

NASA’s Ranking! ItemNASA Ranking Box of Matches15 : virtually worthless – there’s no oxygen on the moon to sustain combustion Magnetic Compass14: The Magnetic field on the moon is not polarized, so it’s worthless for navigation Portable Heating Unit13: Not needed unless on the dark side 1 Case - Dehydrated Milk12: Bulkier duplication of food concentrate Two.45 Caliber Pistols11: Possible means of self – propulsion Signal Flares10: Use as distress signal when the mother ship is sighted Self-Inflating Life Raft9: CO 2 bottle in military raft may be used for propulsion

NASA’s Ranking! ItemNASA Ranking Parachute Silk8 : Protection from Sun’s rays First Aid Kit7: Needles connected to vials of vitamins, medicines, etc. will fit special aperture in NASA space suit 50 Feet Nylon Rope6: Useful in scaling cliffs & tying injured together Solar-Powered FM Received-Transmitter 5: For communication with mother ship, but FM required line-of-sight transmission & can only be used over short ranges Food Concentrate4: Efficient means of supplying energy requirements Stellar Map3: Primary means of navigation – star patterns appear essentially identical on the moon as on Earth 5 Gallons Water2: Needed for replacement of tremendous liquid loss on the light side

NASA’s Ranking! ItemNASA Ranking lb Tanks of Oxygen # 1 : Most pressing survival need (weight is not a factor since gravity is one-sixth of the Earth’s – each tank would weigh only about 17 pounds on the moon!)

For each item, mark the number of points that your score differs from the NASA ranking. Next, add up all the points. Disregard + or – differences. The lower the total score, the better your score! SCORING

SCORING 0-25: Excellent! 26-32: Good 33-45: Average 46-55: Fair 56-70: Poor, suggests use of Earth-bound logic! : Very Poor – perhaps you’re a casualty of the space age 