NASA is evaluating how people prioritize and make decisions in emergency situations based on the actual usefulness of objects in their environment. Do you accept the challenge and test your survival skills?
If you have ever wondered how you would perform in extreme situations, such as being trapped on the Moon with limited resources. This is precisely where survival tests come in, and there is a particularly curious one that tests your team-building and decision-making skills.
This is the Lunar Survival Test of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an experience designed to evaluate how you would deal with obstacles on a space mission. It should be noted that These tests allow potential astronauts to demonstrate their knowledge in unforeseen situations.
You must make critical decisions to ensure your own safety and that of your team. In addition, they help selection and training groups to identify strengths and weaknesses, which is essential to form cohesive, but above all efficient, work groups.
The NASA test puts you in the shoes of a member of the space crew ready to take off to the Moon. However, during the journey a series of technical problems arise and you find yourself in a forced landing more than 160,000 kilometers away from your original destination point, that is, from Earth.
Your ship’s supplies have been damaged and you now rely on your party to decide what items to take with you on a moonwalk. The list of items is varied and ranges from everyday objects to the most unusual.
Priority Object List
- Box of matches
- Concentrated food boxes
- 20 meters of nylon rope
- silk parachute
- Portable heating device
- Two .45 caliber pistols
- A box of powdered milk
- Two 50 kg oxygen tanks
- A map of the lunar firmament
- An inflatable rescue boat
- A compass
- 25 liters of drinking water
- Special luminous flares
- A first aid kit
- A portable FM transmitter receiver
Your task is to classify these elements in order of importance, assigning numbers from 1 to 15 based on their usefulness in the mission survival situation.. It turns out that this test, although it may sound like a game, has solid psychological foundations.
It should be noted that it is not new and was developed by social psychology professor Jay Hall in 1970 to address teamwork challenges in the office. His goal was to make team-building exercises more entertaining and effective, while assessing individual, but especially group, skills.
Below are the correct answers listed in order of importance for each of the objects:
- Two 50 kg oxygen tanks: Oxygen is vital for survival and lunar gravity does not affect its weight significantly.
- 25 liters of drinking water: It is essential to replace fluid loss on the “light side” of the Moon, justifying its high ranking.
- A map of the lunar firmament:Ranked in third position, the star map is essential for navigation, as the star patterns on the Moon are similar to those on Earth.
- Concentrated food boxes: This concentrated food is an efficient source of energy to meet the nutritional needs of astronauts.
- A portable FM transmitter receiver: Although useful for short-distance communication, FM’s limited range puts it in the middle ground.
- 20 meters of nylon rope: Although not perfect, nylon rope is useful for climbing cliffs or tying up wounds.
- A first aid kit: Injectable needles are useful and can be attached to the spacesuit, but are not essential.
- silk parachute: Although not ideal as a parachute on the Moon, it provides some protection from the sun’s rays and radiation.
- An inflatable rescue boat: A CO₂ bottle can be used for propulsion.
- Special luminous flares: They are useful as distress signals, which puts them in the middle ground in the classification.
- Two .45 caliber pistols: Although they could be used for self-propulsion, NASA does not consider them useful on the Moon.
- A box of powdered milk: Similar to feed concentrate, dehydrated milk is less efficient and redundant.
- Portable heating device: This unit is not necessary unless you are on the dark side of the Moon where temperatures are extreme.
- A compass: The magnetic field on the Moon is not polarized, making the compass not useful for navigation.
- Box of matches: Despite its usefulness on Earth, there is no oxygen on the Moon to sustain combustion, making it useless.
The importance of this type of testing lies in its ability to simulate real crisis situations and see how individuals and groups respond.. Through ranking items in order of usefulness, evaluators can gain valuable information about decision-making skills.
Although it is unlikely that you will find yourself on the Moon in the near future, this experience can help you develop key skills that are useful in many areas of life. Each item on the list above has a specific purpose and value in a survival situation.