OK, here's my opinion, and you probably saw this coming. And, there may be additional responses to my original question above. I think this doesn't take anything away from the successes given in this topic btw, because success was previously defined; student team reach 'space.' The criticism (can't think of a better word at the moment) that I have is that the path to this accomplishment is not very well defined. On this topic, I saw someone suggest that in order to "count" the rocket had to be successfully recovered. I like that. But, that's not the previously defined goal. Someone also asked, "so, what's next?" Good question. Duplication of the achievement? Personally, I think being the 2nd or 3rd, etc, is still impressive, but many people think "been there, done that," and we are rocket people; we tend to push the limits of what is possible. So, I think that success could be redefined, and it would be a good idea to do it. But, who's going to do that, and would there be a prize involved? I have no suggestions on who should do that. But, how about including things like, successful recovery, maintaining tracking, full data recovery, flight video, limit on the flight and recovery cylinder, de-spin at apogee, how about the ability to re-fly the rocket in 48 hours? Proving you could do it again is cool. Maybe redefining the altitude goal. With a more detailed definition of success, I think the path there would be more clearly defined. You can't do complicated things without testing and incremental successes. And, I bet that it would be a lot more challenging. The first teams to achieve the first success (reach space) might not be the first on this re-defined challenge to reach space.
