Scientific discovery, economic windfalls, technological breakthroughs, and geopolitical dominance — much hangs in the balance as humanity embarks on a new chapter in spaceflight, exploration, and commercialization.
The Sagan Space Tournament forecasts a range of significant milestones — lunar occupation, private space tourism, and space debris risks — building on the Metaculus community’s strong foundation forecasting these topics. This tournament is not just for intellectual curiosity alone — it is designed to produce valuable insights and enhance our understanding of technological timelines, spaceflight accessibility, and geopolitical implications. We hope to use our community’s forecasts, comments, and insights to inform key decision makers in space governance.
Space is quickly becoming more accessible to many — developing countries, private entities, even schools can launch spacecraft; civilian tourists can travel beyond the atmosphere; China is preparing its own space station; and NASA’s Artemis program is aiming to send humans back to the moon in 2024. And that isn’t all; projects are underway to send astronauts to Mars, mine asteroids, construct massive constellations of satellites, and even transmit solar power from space to Earth.
However, Earth’s orbit and our near solar system is a common pool resource for humanity without a central authority. This results in a serious governance and collective action problem, which some have likened to the Wild West. A better understanding of the near-term developments in spaceflight and exploration could help us anticipate and address the resulting challenges in governance. Forecasting can play an important role in this effort.
Carl Sagan brought astronomy, science, and a curiosity for space into homes around the world, and this tournament is inspired by the unique brand of science communication that is his legacy.
We are grateful to the Metaculus community for sharing your valuable insights and contributing to our shared understanding of spaceflight and exploration timelines!
Tournament Prize Structure
This tournament features 30 questions about important milestones in spaceflight and exploration, between now and the year 2035. Questions are broadly categorized into five areas: Launch Capabilities, Satellites & Objects, National Programs, Commercial Economy, and Lunar Missions. The release of new questions is staggered, with 10 questions released with the tournament’s December 6 launch, and another 20 released on December 13.
A total $5,000 prize pool will be awarded for accurate forecasts and insightful comments. A total of $2,500 will be awarded in 2024 to exemplary comments, as determined by a small group of judges. Another $2,500 will be awarded in 2030 when most of the tournament’s questions will likely be resolved.
The Commenting Prize
There will be a commenting prize pool of $2,500 for any and all questions within this tournament. There will be eight commenting prizes awarded for comments made before January 1, 2024. In January of 2024, four judges, comprising subject matter experts and Metaculus Admins, will independently read through all of the comments on all of the question groups in the tournament and assign a rating to each comment out of 10. Ratings will be aggregated, and prizes will be awarded to the top eight comments as shown below:
- $500 each for the top three comments
- $200 each for the fourth place through eighth place comments
Individual users may receive multiple comment prizes up to a maximum prize award of $1,000. The comments will be judged based on how they meet some or all of the criteria described below:
- The comment is well-reasoned and clearly written
- The comment provides valuable information and reasoning
- The comment identifies mistakes in the community’s reasoning or clearly explains why the author’s forecast differs from the community’s
- The comment describes connections between forecasts on different question groups, or inconsistencies between forecasts on different question groups
Scoring Accuracy
All questions — including those forecasting on 2025, 2030, and 2035 — will be hidden for three months, during which the community median will not be visible. For the leaderboard, 25% of the coverage weight will be determined by participation during this hidden period and the other 75% will be based on participation during the visible period. Tournament scoring aims to balance rewarding independent forecasting skill (during the hidden period) and providing latecomers who miss the hidden period a realistic chance to finish in first place. Any questions which have not been resolved by January 1, 2031 (i.e., the subquestions pertaining to the year 2035) will be excluded from the tournament leaderboard, and will not be included when calculating coverage.