NASA Unveils New Online Game
Agency aims to reinvigorate youth interest in space exploration.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina – For most Americans, getting excited about NASA space exploration is a thing of the past. When an aging space shuttle takes off on a mission to the International Space Station, there seems to be little interest even by the mainstream media.
NASA hopes to change that with a new subscription-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) videogame, "Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond". NASA Learning Technologies and the Innovative Partnership Program Office have selected game developers Virtual Heroes, Project Whitecard and Information in Place to create a realistic virtual world that will allow gamers to explore the next 30 years of manned space exploration from the comfort of the couch.
"We want to create a fun, compelling gaming experience that will give players the chance to learn about science and engineering careers while they play the game," said Daniel Laughlin, Ph.D., project manager, NASA Learning Technologies and research scientist with the Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center at the University of Maryland. "NASA is committed to attracting more students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields of study and careers. We hope this game will inspire players to consider those careers."
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The new game, which will be released next year, is being developed with input from past and current NASA astronauts as well as scientists, engineers, and GS level employees. As a result, all of the spacecraft, robotics, technology and gadgets in the game will be based on current NASA prototypes, offering a realistic journey into space.
"Players will pick a profession like a roboticist, space geologist, astrobiologist or mechanical engineer and work together as a team as they explore space and complete missions, establishing bases and outposts and traveling to the farthest reaches of the solar system," explained Jerry Heneghan, founder and CEO of Virtual Heroes, which has previously worked on the U.S. Department of Defense’s "America's Army" videogame. "The game will offer both individual challenges and team-based objectives to encourage players to use real-life applications of science, math and engineering to unlock new in-game vehicles, spacesuits, robotics and mining apparatus that will propel them further into space."
As part of this joint collaboration between the U.S. government and the private game developers for a commercial, subscription-based MMO game, NASA will get the right of first refusal on approving all story arcs, story boards and mission specifications.
"We'll have the latest NASA data to build our assets with, including high resolution images of Saturn from the Cassini Mission," said Khal Shariff, CEO of Project Whitecard. "We'll be able to show people what it's like to be in orbit around Saturn or to fly next to a comet."
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Heneghan said the plan is for the game development team to initially create a lot of content for the game, but eventually they will create tools so that educational institutions and individual enthusiasts can create their own missions, content and assets and share this user-generated content with others. Since the game is being developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 technology, a lot of interesting content should come directly from gamers. Moreover, having gamers spend hundreds of thousands of hours creating their own space exploration paths could benefit NASA in the form of potentially new solutions for everything from rocket designs to mission planning.
"In the game, people are going to be trying to get to the moon and then get to Mars by spending the least amount of money and using the least amount of resources, because what they’ll want to do is get into a spaceship as soon as possible," said Sonny Kirkley, Ph.D., co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Information in Place and adjunct assistant professor, School of Informatics, Indiana University.
In addition to being an online game that casual gamers can enjoy, "Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond" will also reach out to schools and universities. Students ages 13 to 25 will be able to play missions in the game designed by instructors and facilitators designed for specific classroom topics like math, science and engineering.
"The game can offer learning missions, which can be anywhere from a half-hour or longer, where students are required to calculate the mass of the asteroid they landed and how much rocket fuel it will take to divert its orbit and that will satisfy a credit," said Heneghan.
Masters students will even be able to receive credit through the game. The Capstone Project Spaceship Design at the University of North Dakota School of Aerospace will allow students to design their spaceships and then try them in the game. Gamers will then be able to fly some of these spacecraft during play.
"I think game technology is the only technology that does justice to not only visualizing the near future, but what we have already explored," said Shariff. "We are talking about a game and a learning system that’s the next evolution of how human beings will see science."
A playable demo of the NASA MMO game will be released before the end of this year, which should whet the appetites for aspiring astronauts.
Source: http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/nasa-unveils-new-online-game/1289633
