

NASA holds a contest for programmers who can improve access to its data archives - nsns
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/04/nasa-tournament-lab-holds-a-contest-for-software-ideas.ars

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roel_v
Whatever happened to just paying people for the work they do? The 10k prize
money isn't even enough to cover costs of thinking up and speccing an
application, let alone actually develop it.

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fletchowns
Maybe not enough for you, but to some high school/college kid it's a good
chunk of money. Not to mention that having this project on your resume
(whether or not you win) is definitely not a bad thing. Being able to have an
influence over how NASA presents all of it's data from the last 30 years to
the public is probably enough incentive by itself for some.

~~~
jlarocco
No, I think if a high school/college kid is smart enough to solve this,
they're smart enough to make more than $10k. If anything, they're just too
naive to realize it.

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bgilroy26
There are folks out there that really love NASA.

Other organizations might not be able to pull something like his off, but if
NASA can, they aren't fleecing everybody, they're just taking advantage of
their market position amongst computer enthusiasts as the recognized leader in
space research.

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DanBC
NASA Tournament Lab on Topcoder (<http://community.topcoder.com/ntl/>)

Topcoder (<http://www.topcoder.com/>)

Planetary Data Systems Challenge (<http://community.topcoder.com/pds-
challenge/>)

Planetary Data System (<http://pds.nasa.gov/>)

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xkcdfanboy
For this kind of algorithmic heuristic work, the prize is measly. This takes
both genius AND gruntwork, I would do it though just for the prestige of
helping the patent offices if it wasn't so much work.

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Craiggybear
Free consultancy. Looks good on the CV I suppose.

And, ok, its probably quite fun -- but I was paid double this in 1991
(£10,000) for a week/10 days -- my first consultancy.

It wasn't even NASA or a mega-corp. It was documentation on the Victorian
Architect, Waterfield, for a small museum.

~~~
creamyhorror
Depending on where you are and what opportunities you know of, it can be a lot
easier or harder to make a buck. I don't think the equivalent of 10K pounds
for a week or two is so easy to earn everywhere, especially in the more
competitive economies of today. Programmers in my country earn wages in line
with everyone else, not rockstar salaries. Not sure about consultants but I
can't imagine most clients paying a lot (10K) for small projects.

The NASA prize is just a sweetener to make it at least worth some kids',
undergrads' or unemployed coders' time to make an attempt. At least it'll look
good on their CV, as you said, unlike with other silly competitions that give
the winning team US$3K, and aren't even organised by entities as prestigious
as NASA.

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ktizo
Surely wikileaks is in for a chance at this one. All they need is one
disgruntled NASA employee.

