Demo For NASA MMO Coming In January

News of the upcoming NASA MMO, Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond, has been scarce since its announcement in 2008, but NASA recently revealed that a "mini demo game" is coming in January that will show off some of what they've completed so far. "Moon Base Alpha utilizes actual NASA Constellation program design details developed by NASA for mankind’s return to the Moon in 2020. Timelines in the much anticipated Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond MMO will be set even farther in the exciting future (2035+), but the ability to explore our own near-future moon missions is also planned for in the forthcoming game facilitated by the NASA Learning Technologies and Innovative Partnerships Programs." They're provided a slideshow and a brief video, and one of the developers spoke about the game with Edge last month.

Comments

Hooray! Now we can CrowdSource Asteroid mitigation

[starglider29a]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1485682&cid=30513270&art_pos=6

I wish that someone would make a game of this... where you need to send up a vehicle, bump and asteroid and watch the change. Give us all a chance to crowd source the various "solutions". Learn just how friggin tricky this would be, how long it would take, how little effect we can have. All of this talk about "capturing this asteroid" on this thread alone is sad. The amount of energy in an asteroid's kinetics is astounding. This topic needs a dose of realism.

Make it so!

non-windows slideshow

[TheLinuxSRC]

For those attempting to view the slideshow on a non-windows machine, you can download the wmv file and play in mplayer (if you have the win32codecs installed).

Re:non-windows slideshow

[psydeshow]

Or just a series of JPEGs for crying out loud.

It's a SLIDESHOW.

Ha

[elrous0]

If thirty years of bullshit promises about moonbases and men on Mars are any indication, this game will never actually materialize.

Re:Ha

[ArsonSmith]

It's going to use the new duke nukem engine.

Not so great

[Locke2005]

I hear the PvP action in this game sucks...

Change

[gearmonger]

Now this is the America I've come to expect: NASA is starting to make games about going into space instead of actually going into space. I'm sure some self-proclaimed 'Gen-Y expert" marketer somewhere is nodding and chuckling to himself while stroking a white cat nestled in his lap.

Will it be like Spore?

[s_p_oneil]

After doing SimEarth, Maxis kicked around the idea of a SimMars. NASA was really excited about helping them (and helping build up PR on the space program), but Maxis killed the idea because they couldn't find a way to make a game about Mars fun without making it 100% fantasy. It's like trying to make a math game fun.

Re:Will it be like Spore?

[Aladrin]

Depends on your definition of fun. Based on watching today's MMO player, I think I could make an accurate moonbase simulation where you spend 4 hours at a time sitting in front of a panel and watching the CO2 filter stats and occasionally pushing a button to equalize it. Add in the necessity to walk back and forth to the bunk and you've got a game.

But seriously, give them some 'real' tasks like monitoring experiments and such and I think there's plenty of people who would play it, at least for a while.

Re:Will it be like Spore?

[s_p_oneil]

Heh. Toss in plenty of delicate problems where a simple mistake could cause everyone to die (followed up by hours of corpse recovery to get your equipment back), and the old EQ fans would be right at home playing it. ;-)

Cut NASA's PR budget

[Animats]

NASA has far too large a PR operation if they're doing this. If they're doing a full-scale game for PR, their PR budget is too big.

The promotional end of NASA may now be the most effective part of the organization.

Re:I thought the funding for this was cut?

[stefanlasiewski]

From one of the articles "one of the developers spoke about the game seems to cover this. Virtual Heroes, the producer of American's Army, is providing this game. It seems like they have already produced a couple space sims ("Race to Mars" and "Virtual Astronaut"), but I might be wrong.

Re:I don't see how the game can fly without B.E.Ms

[vlm]

Nobody is going to wan to hop around amongst a bunch of giant beer cans with a wrench in their hand.

Beer and wenches always go together... Oh, you said "wrench"

Re:Moon Base Alpha?

[Yvan256]

It bugs me that Hollywood didn't jump on the occasion in 1999 to make a Space: 1999 movie and set the release date on september 13th. They've been into remakes of old things for the last two decades or so, would've fitted the bill perfectly ten years ago.

can't wait

[fred fleenblat]

i'm looking forward to the part in the game where you put on adult diapers and drive 900 miles to shoot at your romantic rival with a BB gun.

Re:Bush's Space Exploration Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can pretend we are following Bush's Space Exploration Vision with only a fraction of the funny money allocated ;)

 
It's cute how you think there was any money allocated for it in the first place. But don't let that stop you from making fun at those gosh-darned dumb wasteful NASA bureaucrats for being unable to fulfill dozens of contradictory unfunded mandates.
 
The reason NASA is developing public relations stuff like this is because it's essentially the only thing they are allowed to do--almost all of their real science is hamstrung by the whims of congresscritters, whose only interest is in ensuring that NASA is required to funnel their scarce funding into the private contractors in their individual states and districts.