Every SSDC event describes requirements for designing a future space settlement or habitat to a very specific set of requirements defined by a Request for Proposal (RFP).  The scenarios are offered in a five-year chronology that illustrates a possible Roadmap for how people will develop commercial interests and settlements in space.  In each year of the chronology, at least four or five different scenarios are offered.  Students who participate in SSDCs for their entire high school careers will not see the same scenario twice.  When the “same” scenario is offered every five years, key requirements are changed to cause designs for prior-years RFPs to be non-compliant.

The five-year chronology of SSDC scenarios presumes people will expand their activities in the inner solar system in the following order: