susie_flo | Nerdy brain teaser (in space)

Good afternoon fiends,

Flabber my gast, we did a fun exercise at work this morning! I know...   but really. I did have fun.

So I wondered if any of you especially nerdylicious folk might like to have a go at it? If so, click below...

(Although it is designed as a team exercise, you can do it on your own - just skip part 2)

Mission on the Moon – Part 1 (individual task)

Instructions:
You are a member of a space crew originally scheduled to rendezvous with a space ship on the lighted surface of the moon. Due to mechanical difficulties, however, your spacecraft was forced to land at a spot some 320 miles from the rendezvous point. During landing, much of the equipment aboard was damaged. Since your survival depends on reaching the spacecraft, the most critical items available must be chosen for the 320-mile trip.

The 15 items listed below were left intact and undamaged after the crash landing. Your task is to rank them in terms of their importance to your crew in allowing them to reach the rendezvous point. Place the number ‘1’ by the most important item, the number ‘2’ by the second most important, and so on through to number ‘15’, the least important. You have 15 minutes to complete this phase of the exercise on your own.

_____    Box of matches
_____    Food concentrate
_____    50 feet of nylon rope
_____    Parachute silk
_____    Portable heating unit
_____    Two .45 calibre pistols
_____    One case dehydrated milk
_____    Two 100 lb. tanks of oxygen
_____    Stellar map (of the Moon's constellation)
_____    Self-inflating life raft
_____    Magnetic compass
_____    20 litres of water
_____    Signal flares
_____    First Aid kit, including injection needles
_____    Solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter

Mission on the Moon – Part 2 (group task)

Your group is to employ the method of group consensus in reaching its decision. This means each group member must agree upon the prediction for each of the 15 survival items before it becomes a part of the group decision. Consensus is difficult to reach, therefore not every ranking will meet with everyone's complete approval. Try, as a group, to make each ranking one with which all group members can at least partially agree. Here are some guides to use in reaching consensus:

1.   Avoid arguing for your own individual judgments. Approach the task on the basis of logic, not emotion.

2.   Avoid changing your mind only in order to reach agreement and avoid conflict. Support only solutions with which you are able to agree.

3.   Avoid "conflict-reducing" techniques such as majority vote, consensus, averaging, or trading decisions.

4.   View differences of opinion as helpful rather than as a hindrance in decision-making.

Answers
I will post these in a separate post behind a cut, so that you can avoid looking until you're ready.
The answers are from NASA and come with a scoring system based on how close you were.

(The idea is that you mark your individual answers and also the ones as a group, to see whether working as a group has improved your performance)

EDIT: don't read comments until you've done the teaser (may contain spoilers)