The year is 2110. Mankind is about to embark on the greatest collective infrastructure project in history: The large scale colonization of space.
The international project has significant GDP contributions from almost every country on earth and has included decades of collaboration from the world's greatest minds.The first Lagrange colonies have begun assembly, while news has just come in of the sheer scale of zero-gravity construction that will need to take place for the next phases.
You are Muhammad Khan, a forgettably named engineer from LA, and you have a design for a new type of remote control rig optimized for work in a vacuum.
Little do you know it, but you are about to carve yourself a tiny little slice of history. Your work, and the work of those who follow you, will help shape the future of the solar system.
For now, you have a bigger problem: Pitching your prototype.
You've shown the Rig around and it's impressed some folks, but you need to actually secure funding to make this thing a reality. Fortunately, you've some contacts in the industry and have a few options:
The first is NASA. The US may be a fading star, but that's a deeply relative term. Even with much of its functions cut up and sold to corporate dogs, NASA has expertise and access rivalled by no-one else on earth and the backing of the US government. Unfortunately, its incredible personnel is badly compromised by the increasingly powerful Commercial Spaceflight lobby and the whims of political change at home.
Second is Musabayev Co-op. An industrial co-op in Kazakhstan, currently they mostly make parts for Baikonur and anything launching from it. They're looking to capitalize on Kazakhstan's recent successes by joining the great space race, but while they've got plenty of expert engineers they simply don't have the money and access of other options. Additionally, while you can do basically anything you can convince the co-op is worth your time, you have to justify your decisions to them and so can't skate by consequences like you could elsewhere.
Finally, there's Toyota. After purchasing SpaceX in the 2060s, Toyota has made several failed attempts to break into commercial spaceflight. They have more money than god and plenty of manufacturing expertise, but are obligated to pursue a profit mandate above all else and have to deal with the whims of corporate bigwigs and the competition.
Who do you pitch to?
[ ] NASA: [+Industrial Expertise, +Engineering Expertise, +Science Expertise, +Crew Expertise, -Political Interference, -Corporate Interference, -High Profile]
[ ] Musabayev Co-Op [+Engineering Expertise, +Latitude, -Funds, -Access, -Accountable]
[ ] Toyota: [+Funds, +Industrial Expertise, -Corporate Control, -Profit Mandate]
