Perse pupil over the moon with international space design mission

Sai (Year 11) shares his thoughts on taking part in this year’s International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

After being part of the UK team at ISSDC in 2023, he brought his experience to support the African representative team at this year’s competition.

My week at the ISSDC was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life, perhaps as one could argue ‘out of this world’. Coming back to Florida again was a thought I had never considered after last year, but living it was genuinely unreal.

Landing in Florida, the environment, as well as the sheer heat and humidity, brought back memories I could never forget. My main aim for this year’s trip was not just to bring home the ‘coveted title’, but rather to live and breathe the experience. I knew I had it in me to win and I’d realised early on all that was needed was one last step.

The UKSDC Nationals was the lead-up to this trip and something kept pestering me – my first Nationals as President of a’ company’ and we didn’t win. I genuinely started to doubt if leadership was something I was cut out for. There were many issues I failed to nip in the bud and I’d realised that I brought too much stress on myself.

Another thing I didn’t realise was so important was, as the late National Space Society CEO Anita Gale coined, the presence of my ‘stress personality’. The heat of the competition brought out something in me I had never seen before – a fiery manager, who at times had no idea what to do, and at times had a clear vision. My perspective on managers changed hugely throughout this competition and from my experience, it seemed like a position where work is an obligation rather than a commodity. However, once I had felt the stress, I really could tell the immense responsibility and weight a leader carries.

Back to the trip, and as we were gearing up to the competition, I had immense fun, but as it grew closer, fear started to gradually creep in. I wanted to win, but again my purpose of being there was not just to win, it was to put in 48 hours of solid work and give my all, which was the mindset I tried to carry throughout the competition.

When the short document came out providing some hints as to what the potential requirements for proposal would be based on, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, as I had experience working with moon bases before and I knew that I could use that to my advantage.

My thought process was to provide the best proposal, but it came at the cost of what the ‘foundation society’ (judges) were looking for.

Another key takeaway I had was my presentation skills. Although I had spent some time considering how I would address the judges and paint our settlement in the best light possible, I stumbled in parts as I presented, due to the stress of timings and the general pressure. One thing I took away was that no matter the pressure, the work was all done, and this part was simple enough. I realised if I had removed that pressure, it would have allowed me to be freer on stage.

Although we didn’t win the competition, I did come back with the Anita Gale Creative Genius Award, created in honour of her and given to one person in each ‘company’. irrespective of this, one great thing in our team was there was never a lack of solutions, but perhaps an abundance, which allowed us to iterate upon our design and improve it quickly as the competition went on.

The competition was, in a good way, a bit of a haze. We had our fair share of setbacks, but we had the right foundations – our communication was tip-top, we all got on with each other, we constructively criticised each other without letting egos get in the way, and at the end of the day, there were improvements we could have made.

After last year, I had no idea that I would ever get such an opportunity again, so thanks to The Perse and the teachers who made the UKSDC journey possible, (physics teachers) Dr Goodson and Mrs Patterson.

Now I cannot wait to restart the UKSDC cycle with my school team and I’m very excited to take part in regionals and hopefully Nationals again.