Yes! Students every year report that the experience is hard and fun. It’s why the tournament has gained an international following. The students who participate overwhelmingly say it’s a lot of fun.

Any Brownsville-area (including surrounding Cameron County school districts) high school student interested in learning about NewSpace.

Developing a settlement in space will require people from all different backgrounds and interests. Obviously many students from the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math fields typically participate, but so do students interested in business, psychology, medicine, communications and marketing, government, and more. If you are interested in the space industry, we are interested in you.

Hard, but in the way that anything worth doing is hard. It’s meant to be challenging—it’s a competition after all. All that said, you don’t have to have a PhD in physics to participate. The tournament is designed for high school students, and your “company” CEO and a group of expert advisors helps every step of the way. But you can expect to spend many hours doing detailed research and design work over the course of the competition.

Previous participants report that skills they learned during the Space Settlement Design Tournament proved valuable in the short and long term. Many credit the tournament with having helped them with their leadership development or improved their ability to work on teams. Others say that the glimpse they got into the space economy through the tournament influenced their career plans. Some are now working for space companies.

Absolutely. Many participants include it in their college applications. The Space Settlement Design Tournament is widely known around the country and the world as a prestigious and valuable experience.

Depends on each person’s interests and skills. Each student gets placed on a team, and each team forms a “company” with a proper management structure and smaller working groups. Once the teams have been put together the team members then elect their president, VP, and other managers for the various different sections that are covered by the RFP. Once that selection process is done then each group must dissect their part of the RFP and get to know it well. They begin the process of assigning roles. Some will research, some will draw, and some will focus on ideation. Usually a team member or two will be in charge of putting their part of the presentation on powerpoint slides. The final product is the culmination of all of the slides put together into a cohesive presentation that will be presented and sold to the judges. The speakers will present their product to Red Team advisors, who will give them ideas, critiques, ask questions, according to the requirement of the RFP. Generally this is done the day before the final presentation.

No. Because of COVID-19, the event will be held virtually in 2021.

The teams use both a Discord server that has been specifically set up for the SSDT, as well as Zoom.

Generally, a bit over three days. Thursday evening is a meet and greet, as well as team setup. The teams then gather and select their officers so that they can be ready for Friday morning. This is also when the teams get to meet and speak to their CEO. The next three days are spent putting together their proposal. Sleeping for an hour or two per day can be quite common. It requires intense focus and a lot of work to complete each part of the proposal. The only time the students will see other groups’ presentations is on the last day when each presents before the judges. Each groups’ information is kept private until the presentation.