Lost on the Moon

Ok, I just did this exercise in a class yesterday and I thought it was pretty interesting. So of course I had to combine it with cigars. Here it goes:

Your spaceship has just crash-landed on the moon. You were scheduled to rendezvous with a mother ship 200 miles away on the lighted surfaces of the moon, but the rough landing has ruined your ship and destroyed all the equipment on board except for the fifteen items listed below. Your crew's survival depends on reaching the mother ship, so you must choose the most critical items available for the trip. Your task is to rank the fifteen items in terms of their importance for survival. Place number 1 by the most important, number 2 by the second most important, and so on through number 15

Box of matches
Food concentrate
Fifty feet of nylon rope
Parachute silk
Solar-powered portable heating unit
Two .45-caliber pistols
One case of dehydrated milk
Two 100-pound tanks of oxygen
Stellar map (of the moon's constellations)
Self-inflating life raft
Magnetic compass
Five gallons of water
Signal flares
First-aid kit containing injection needles
Solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter

Here is the game: Participants should post their rankings. At the end of the game, I will provide the rankings that NASA came up with. Participants will then take the difference between their ranking and NASA's and sum up the absolute value of the differences. The higher the score, the worse you did.

The winner will get a 5-pack from me. This contest will run until midnight this Friday (04/02). Please no cheating and if any BOTLs have played this before, I kindly request that you refrain from participating.

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Comments

illinoisgolf99

I dunno if this list has been done already, I've been skimmin through other people's posts and I see a bit of a pattern, so here goes nothin! 2 100 lb tanks of oxygen (breathing is important) 5 gallons water (water is important) food concentration (food is important) first aid kit (health is important) stellar map (you can navigate via the stars) 50 ft. nylon rope (use it to haul gear and/or use it as climbing aid) FM walkie talkie (communication) parachute silk (use as sleeping bag in place of bulky heating unit, silk is lightweight) 2 .45 caliber pistols (in case of aliens :P) self-inflating life raft (can use as shelter) signal flares (signaling for alien assistance) dehydrated milk (not really necessary if you have food concentration) magnetic compass (no magnetism on moon) heating unit (if all else fails you can stay warm if you're not already) box of matches (no oxygen) I used to be really into survival when I was younger and I think this is a decent list... only time will tell though! I think we should all buy the stuff on our lists and take a shuttle up to the moon and see how it goes lol

illinoisgolf99

PS sorry about the list being all scrunched together, thought I spaced it better!

TatuajeVI

illinoisgolf99:
PS sorry about the list being all scrunched together, thought I spaced it better!

Go here to learn how to use formatting:
HTML formatting

illinoisgolf99

thanks for the link bro

Jetmech_63

I used one of my aircrew buddies to help me out on this so i have to split the cigars if im right. This actually got pretty heated, plus we had been drinking....so here goes.
Oxygen
Water
Map
Food concentrate
FM Radio
50 ft rope
First aid kit
Parachute silk
Raft
Flares
Pistols
Case of milk
Heating unit
Compass
Matches

This was assuming a lot of stuff like everyone is ok, youre wearing spacesuits etc... We really started splitting hairs and coming up with some really Macguyver type stuff but this is what came out of it. If anyhting i think the raft is in the wrong place...we couldnt come up with a good spot for it so we put it in the middle.

Jetmech_63

So how'd we do? Kinda curious to see Nasa's explanations.

sightunseen

Alright, guys, I promised to post the answers Friday night, but I was caught up with a few things and couldn't get to a computer until today. So sorry I was not able to get the answers up sooner. Without further ado, here are the answers:

1 Two 100lb oxygen tanks: Most pressing survival need
2 5 gals. Water: Replacement for tremendous liquid loss on light side of moon
3 Stellar Map: Primary means of navigation
4 Food Concentrate: Efficient means of energy
5 Solar-powered FM 2-way radio: For communication with mother ship, but FM requires line-of-sight transmission, short range
6 50ft Nylon rope: Useful in scaling cliffs, tying injured together, etc.
7 First-aid kit with injection needles: Needles fit special aperture in space suits
8 Parachute silk: Sun protection
9 Self-inflating life raft: Co2 bottle in raft may be used for propulsion
10 Signal Flares: Distress signal when mother ship is located
11 2 45Cal Pistols: Possible means of propulsion
12 One case of dehydrated milk: Bulkier duplication of food concentrate
13 Solar Powered heating unit: Not needed unless on dark side of the moon
14 Magnetic Compass: Magnetic field on moon not polarized: useless
15 Box of Matches: No oxygen on the moon: worthless

Alright, so If i can have all the participants calculate their score and update their post, I can figure out who took first place.

betasynn

44...wow, way off.

j0z3r

Well it looks like Vinny nailed each one, so unless someone else got them all right...

Alex Williams

I got two wrong. Switched em up... Now vinnie, be honest, did you use google??

Jetmech_63

Actually i didnt, the only one i didnt feel good about was the raft. Me and a friend stayed on the phone for about an hour hashing it out. Our reasonings are similar with the exception of the raft and the first aid kit. Cool. If it looks too suspicious(no way of proving or disproving really) i can exempt myself and the prize can go to the next person in line, thought this was fun.

Alex Williams

Hell no you ain't gonna exempt yourself!! I was just messin with ya

good job!

sightunseen

Jetmech_63:
Actually i didnt, the only one i didnt feel good about was the raft. Me and a friend stayed on the phone for about an hour hashing it out. Our reasonings are similar with the exception of the raft and the first aid kit. Cool. If it looks too suspicious(no way of proving or disproving really) i can exempt myself and the prize can go to the next person in line, thought this was fun.

An hour? Wow, I am impressed at how seriously you guys took it.

laker1963

I did mine thru PM. I just calculated my score and apparently I never made it to the bottom step of my downed spacecraft, LMAO.

I was sure this was a trick thing so I came up with some pretty weird logic.

Jetmech_63

sightunseen:
Jetmech_63:
Actually i didnt, the only one i didnt feel good about was the raft. Me and a friend stayed on the phone for about an hour hashing it out. Our reasonings are similar with the exception of the raft and the first aid kit. Cool. If it looks too suspicious(no way of proving or disproving really) i can exempt myself and the prize can go to the next person in line, thought this was fun.
An hour? Wow, I am impressed at how seriously you guys took it.

We were drinkin...and most of the time was going off on tangents with macguyver type stuff....like taking the pistols apart and making little rockets out of the barrels using the needles in the first aid kit as the fuel injectors, the oxygen as the oxidizer and the dehydrated milk as the propellant.....

Sandman1am

Jetmech_63:
sightunseen:
Jetmech_63:
Actually i didnt, the only one i didnt feel good about was the raft. Me and a friend stayed on the phone for about an hour hashing it out. Our reasonings are similar with the exception of the raft and the first aid kit. Cool. If it looks too suspicious(no way of proving or disproving really) i can exempt myself and the prize can go to the next person in line, thought this was fun.
An hour? Wow, I am impressed at how seriously you guys took it.

We were drinkin...and most of the time was going off on tangents with macguyver type stuff....like taking the pistols apart and making little rockets out of the barrels using the needles in the first aid kit as the fuel injectors, the oxygen as the oxidizer and the dehydrated milk as the propellant.....

Using dehydrated milk as a propellant???? WTF? That is some Macguyver type *** right there. The only time I've seen dehydrated milk used as any kind of propellant it was coming out of a baby's ass!

urbino

I thought of the propulsion angle with the pistols, but it seemed like one of those things that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. How far are you going to propel yourself with one clip of rounds? Is it worth the risk of propelling yourself into the cold vacuum of space? Of accidentally (or intentionally) shooting yourself if you get space dementia?

I dunno, it just doesn't seem that practicable.

mrpillow

Seeing as how the recoil from an automatic .45 is much more of an upward thrust than rear-ward, coupled with how little power it actually sends in that direction, I doubt firing a gun would move you much even in the lacking gravity of moon land.

Fourtotheflush

I still say crash landing on the moon = UR DEAD.

Jetmech_63

So what'd we win

Krieg

Jetmech_63:
sightunseen:
Jetmech_63:
Actually i didnt, the only one i didnt feel good about was the raft. Me and a friend stayed on the phone for about an hour hashing it out. Our reasonings are similar with the exception of the raft and the first aid kit. Cool. If it looks too suspicious(no way of proving or disproving really) i can exempt myself and the prize can go to the next person in line, thought this was fun.
An hour? Wow, I am impressed at how seriously you guys took it.

We were drinkin...and most of the time was going off on tangents with macguyver type stuff....like taking the pistols apart and making little rockets out of the barrels using the needles in the first aid kit as the fuel injectors, the oxygen as the oxidizer and the dehydrated milk as the propellant.....

I still say all you need is duct tape, fix your *** and then your ass back to the mother ship

sightunseen

Jetmech_63:
So what'd we win

Does everyone agree that our winner is Jetmech (too lazy to add up everyone's score)? If so, then I owe you a 5-pack.

sightunseen

sightunseen:
Jetmech_63:
So what'd we win
Does everyone agree that our winner is Jetmech (too lazy to add up everyone's score)? If so, then I owe you a 5-pack.

No one has said anything, so I am going to name Jetmech as our surival winnar! PM me your addy, please.

mrpillow

I'm confused as to how exactly I do my score?

sightunseen

mrpillow:
I'm confused as to how exactly I do my score?

For each item, take the absolute difference between your ranking and NASA's ranking (e.g. if you had ranked oxygen #4 while NASA had it at #1, 3 would be the score for that item). Then, you sum up all the differences for your final score. The lower the score, the better you did.

mrpillow

Oh ok, let me add mine up.M

I added up and came out with 40, then realize I used 5 gallons of water twice and left off the matches XP

Looks like jetmech is the winner!