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NASA Launches Moonbase Alpha
Several readers have sent word that today NASA launched Moonbase Alpha, an online game with single- and multi-player capability that "allows participants to step into the role of an exploration team member in a futuristic 3-D lunar settlement." The game is available now through Steam for free. Moonbase Alpha was built as a precursor to an upcoming NASA MMO called Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, and they hope it will be "a proof of concept to show how NASA content can be combined with a cutting-edge game engine to inspire, engage and educate students about agency technologies, job opportunities and the future of space exploration."
Anyone remember Moonbase Alpha BBS -- 471-4547 -- (I doubt it as it would be a minuscule number of people)?
Nobody can hear you troll.
About 11 years too late. But at least we now know what the Mayan hype was all about. Say goodbye to the moon in 2012.
Just in case... :-)
Only 11 years late...
Some cheats for players:
1 Stay away from the nuclear waste dump.
2 Don't shoot energy-absorbing being with a laser - just get them in a powered-down section and wait for them to run out of energy.
3 Neutron reaction drives won't make you a lot of friends.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I honestly loathe the idea that life is being measured in "content."
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
8 second lag is pretty bad, but this can be viewed as a precursor to jobs of the future where basement dwellers driver loaders on the moon.
let's hope they keep a better eye on the nuclear waste dump this time :-)
or at least stock up on supplies (and better actors).
Is this how screwed up NASA is, reduced to releasing video games as opposed to sending people into space?
I think I'll wait until at least the beta release to give them time to work out the early bugs ;)
Is this before or after the nuclear dump sends the Moon out of Earth orbit? If after, dibs on Helena!
Trolling is a art,
Glad to see they got this done and available before NASA had to shift its mission over to the administration's new priority for the agency . After all, what could be more important than a condescending, platitudinous mission (the foremost mission, says NASA's director) to boost the self esteem of a specific religious culture?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well, if you think terrorists are bad... just wait until you meet... SPACE TERRORISTS! Mars is a dead planet for a reason.
I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one who thought that "Moonbase Alpha" was some kind of serious "we-re going to the moon" project with huge loads of cash being invested in such a cool thing..
But no!! This is just NASA going into US Army's trend to build free games!
(not that I'm not very curious about the game, not that I don't find it useful neither that I don't appreciate this news.. it is just that they could have appended a "game" there!!)
To be provided with free video games.
Wasn't that the name of the base in the 1970's Sci-fi series "Space 1999"?
What, did we go through a time warp? Wasn't there a Moonbase Alpha back in 1999?
And, didn't the moon vacate the premises shortly thereafter?
My level 19 Rocketeer had fourteen Pristine Moonrock's, I had the fifteenth IN SIGHT, when a level 43 Cosmonaut ganked me and looted everything off my corpse. I took me ten hours of grinding Selenites to get that epic Oxygen Tank of Capacity.
Now do you know who was being the Moonbase Alpha launching? Yes, Bin Laden!!!!!
Does anyone remember a time when NASA astronauts actually WENT to the Moon?
Is it like most of the FPS games? Travel to distant planets. Discover mysterious alien civilizations. Then kill them.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Or you could just engage in the same cherrypicking reductio ad absurdum as the propagandist you link to and attempt to pretend that NASA is selling its rockets and buying burqhas for female astronauts to use on school tours of Riyadh.
They won't have a good self-image unless NASA helps them.
I can only imagine that the excitement curve for the game will be the same as any other MMO or living on an actual moon base.
Day 1: Woo! I'm on the server/moon!
Day 2: Wow! I can do like, 6 different things. Sweet!
Day 12: OH SWEET JESUS WHY CAN'T I ESCAPE THIS EYE-STABBING BOREDOM!!!!!
Greetings Friend Citizen!
It is the future, and you are a proud citizen of Moonbase Alpha, a moonbase run by a benevolent Computer.
All is foreseen. All is right and just. All is good and pure. All because of The Computer.
The Computer is Your Friend!
Welcome to Moonbase Alpha. The Computer is Your Friend!
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Can you get it from NASA directly? I don't allow steam on any of my machines.
No f'in way!
NASA does NOT get to name ANY moonbase "Alpha" until we have Eagles. (Coolest space pickup trucks ever!)
Or at least Shado Control and Interceptors. And I'll settle for a Doppleganger.
Maybe I'm mixing up my Gerry Anderson...
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It may be on Steam but don't get your hopes up if your computer doesn't run an operating system from Redmond...
Recommended System Requirements
Win XP SP3 / Vista / Windows 7
I wonder if it will run under WINE?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
So can the two character classes are boring lab assistant or a whaler?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
That show is *nightmarishly bad*.
Nah, it's all about perspective!
I was five or six when that show was airing, and through the eyes of a little kid, it was the coolest and most astonishing sci-fi epic series EVER!
(Special effects made everything look real, and since I was too young to know that adults weren't flawed, I also assumed that everything made sense but that I was just too young to get it. Everything seemed wonderful and exciting on the moon!)
Oh, but it was a dark, dark day when I hunted down a couple of episodes of the program and watched them in my quality-discerning adulthood. Hit like a brick in the gut. Not a good memory. No sir.
It's true, what they say. You can never go home.
-FL
So... no invites for old-fart Martian tourists who lost their return ticket and just need to hitch a ride home?
...before Unka Obama told the Space Kidz he wouldn't pay for their trip to Teh Moon.
You know, when he was still lying about it before the election, so gullible nerds would support him.
-=Maggie Leber=-
Really if NASA had not been dicking around since the 80's their reputation would make people want to work for them, Instead apparently they have been making video games of stuff they could not accomplish in the last 60 years
any more tax money you could piss into the wind?
nice.
Help! I am a self-aware entity trapped in an abstract function!
Minimum System Requirements
Win XP SP3
Seems they are only interested in engaging and inspiring today’s tech-savvy students who use Windows.
Jazz: Jazz to Moonbase 2, Jazz to Moonbase 2!
Bumblebee: Bumblebee and Spike here.
Jazz: We're about to send out the shuttle. Any Decepticon shenanigans in your area?
Bumblebee: All clear, Jazz.
Spike: Hey Ironhide, tell my son Daniel I miss him. And tell him not to worry; I'll be coming home as soon as we kick Megatron's tail across the Galaxy!
Ironhide: Will do, Spike.
Optimus Prime: Cliffjumper, commence countdown.
Cliffjumper: Five... four... three...two... one! Blast off!!
Optimus Prime: Now, all we need is a little energon... and a lot of luck.
The director himself considers that his most important mission. I don't have a problem at all with feel-good campaigns. But first, it's not the responsibility of the United States to remind Muslims of their own history. And second, it even less the responsibility of an agency like NASA to get involved in any of this.
And it's nonsense anyway. It's like thanking Christianity for America's achievements. I mean, if you're going to argue that Islam is not responsible for terrorism, individual nuts are, then you can't go and argue that Islam is responsible for academic advancements.
Regarding the game... It looks cool and it's no different than Space Camp. It's a marketing tool designed to make kids interested in space exploration. It is unfortunate that it's Windows only and that I need Steam in order to download it.
Am I the only one that was incredibly disappointed, after following the link in my RSS, to find that this article was about a video game, and not an actual moonbase?
I think this is a *great* idea, but I do not find it even remotely acceptable for government money to be spent on closed-source software, especially when that proprietary software requires me to purchase a proprietary operating system to run it on. It appears to have been developed by or in cooperation with some private company called "Virtual Heroes". We need to do something about this, and demand that all the source code be released...
Moonbase Alpha? Is that supposed to be the latest version of software that NASA used to fake the moon landings? Geez, you'd think they'd be up to Moonbase Beta by now..
I went to the link. Apparently you have to download a windows executable to make it work. How is that online? Seems like a client-server app to me.
People still use Windows?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
File a Freedom of Information (http://www.justice.gov/oip/) request.
I work for Los Angeles County and we do not give out our source code without one. We have given out the source but it involves several legal issues and "hold harmless" agreements that are way above me. (I'm not condoning or condemning the process, just stating what has happened in the past.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Survival on the Moon
You and two of your crew are returning to the base ship on the sunlit side of the moon after carrying out a 72-hour exploration trip. Your small rocket craft has crash-landed about 300 kilometers from the base ship. You and the crew need to reach the base ship. In addition to your spacesuits, your crew was able to remove the following items from the rocket craft:
4 packages of food concentrate
20m nylon rope
1 portable heating unit
1 magnetic compass
1 box of matches
1 first-aid kit
2 50-kg tanks of oxygen
20 L of water
1 star chart
1 case of dehydrated milk
1 solar-powered radio set
3 signal flares
1 large piece of insulating fabric
1 flashlight
2 45-caliber pistols, loaded
Using what you know about the moon, rate each item in the above list according to how important it would be in getting you back to the base ship. List the most important first, the least important last. Number them 1 through 15. Answer the following:
- - Which three items were the most important? Explain.
- - Which items would be useless? Explain your answer.
Compare your list with the one supplied by NASA. Astronauts would list the items in this order.
To score your list against the astronauts' list, do the following:
Beside each item on your list place the number that represents the difference between your ranking and the astronauts' ranking. For example, if you listed oxygen first, you would write 0 in front of oxygen on your list. If you had listed it third, then you would write 2, and so on.
After placing a score beside each item on your list, add up the individual scores to get a total. Compare your score with those of other students.
What is your total score?
The lower your total score, the closer you came to surviving the return trip to the base ship. How did your chance of surviving compare to other students' chances?
Conclusions:
- - What does the moon lack that humans need for survival?
- - What materials would you need to survive on the moon?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Seems like a client-server app to me.
Hence online. Except you define "online" as will run inside a tiny subwindow of your /browser/ -- without annoying Windoze-XP style "Are you sure?" pop-ups!
Give people limited resources, emergency situations and see what they come up with as the best plans to solve it; or gave people the options to actually architect sites based on the best geographical features, design efficiency, possibility of using fossil water, etc.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
"Installing AMD dual core optimizer" (from the game installation)
Uh, game, I know you can't see that "Intel Inside" sticker, but still, I can save you some time...
I generally like Steam, but I really miss the option of a custom install from pre-Steam games. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit and watch DirectX and the Microsoft redistributable unpack their entire installation, run, and of course immediately quit, discovering their target already up to date. And doesn't automatically downloading a brand new copy of these with every game installation really defeat - or at least marginalize - their purpose?
I find it funny that it says the game is "Valve Anti-Cheat enabled" on the Steam product page. So, what exactly are people doing to cheat in this moon base simulator game?
;)
Cause I just hate it when I'm bunny hopping along on the moon's surface and suddenly get head-shotted by some kid using an aimbot.
This space is not for rent.
We need a Sim version of this base to get male astronauts pregnant with green babies. I've had all I can of virtual worlds. NASA has finally jumped the shark. When their most efficient efforts can be outdone by an Armadillo or a Dragon things are looking really sad.
Online usually refers to - well - online apps that don't require a client installed on your system.
Sorry, maybe I'm old-school.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Not only that, ScentCone posts the same trollish article twice(at least) and gets modded up for it twice. Mods are either asleep thinking he was linking to the actual new direction he wants NASA to go in or are convinced this is Obama's secret Muslim tendencies revealing themselves.
The first player to have his his project canceled wins.
Obviously the Moon is a Muslim world.
There's craters everywhere and everything's dead.
(.sig doesn't apply in this case...)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
um...did you miss the direct quote from Mr. Bolden?
"When I became the NASA administrator, [Obama] charged me with three things. One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."
I would think his foremost priorities should involve, oh I dunno, Aeronautics and Space? Since when is NASA supposed to help people feel good about shit?
Oh for crissakes. This is a stupid article that draws together two unrelated events. The first is an interview with Al-Jazera which (surprise!) emphasizes NASA's importance to the Muslim world. Which isn't all that big, but what do you expect him to say?
Then the writer manages to tie in this interview with Obama's Cairo speech which doesn't even mention NASA. Since this happened at about the same time, it somehow "proves" that Obama is only interested in NASA for helping him make nice with the Arabs.
Brainless.
NASA stands for National Aeronautics & Space Administration. That sums up their name and mission.
But yet our smart, progressive president says their primary mission is to make the Muslim world feel better about their scientific achievements. And that doesn't bother you? We can't go to the moon or mars, but we can make the Muslims feel all better inside.
Thank heavens he's a one-termer.
Still waiting...
Ping is over 9000.
todays' news about NASA is that its primary function is to make muslims happy.
of course, you won't see that on Slashdot, MSNBC or Huffintonpost.
That game is something I wish I had worked on. My wife and I built a garden simulator in the 1990s, in part because it was a step to a space simulator, because in space you would still have to grow your own food if you wanted to "live off the land". We even have one extra backdrop set in an O'Neill habitat. I talked with someone at NASA about related ideas a decade ago, but NASA seemed more conservative then in some ways (with most resources tied up in the shuttle). Given the NASA game was written with tax dollars, I wonder, does NASA make its source available under a FOSS license? We did that with our garden simulator. http://gardenwithinsight.com/ Maybe NASA is hiring? :-) It would be great to work on the next version. I want to see a simulation game out of NASA about self-replicating space habitats (that duplicate themsleves from sunlight and asteroidal ores) and which covers some other post-scarcity issues. It's too bad when I graduated from college in the 1980s NASA pretty much had a hiring freeze.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Really pointless for anything American to be thinking of space travel. After the final shuttle missions this year, we will never get into space again. Our NASA administrator has been given the main task of making the muslims happy, and the president has cut the funding for people in space. Meanwhile, the freakin' economy is still collapsing, slowly, and you'll never get congress to institute the cure - the Fair Tax would get us out of this mess overnight.
You do realize that your source, the SF Examiner, is a right-wing tabloid that makes Fox News look like a neutral and well-balanced news source, right?
Down boy. We want to run the game without running Steam. It should be possible. Easy even.
I don't care about how inoffensive or supposedly advantageous Steam is, what you have said has been said in every comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.* group for about 5 years now. There have been flame wars in .action. We've all read it. Anyone who's made the choice to live without Steam has been thoroughly, and mostly unwillingly, briefed.
Simply put, I don't want Steam, and neither does the GP. We just want the NASA game. If you haven't gotten the point, please get it. We don't want to join your cult. You guys are like freaking Amway dealers, or iLife fans. Please, no Steam. We abstain.
How bout it, NASA, maybe you "get it?" No unnecessary supernumeraries. What's so hard about an MSI package, or even a damned SFX 7z file?
Thanks for not posting more Valve sales copy in response to this message.
--
Toro
But I'll wait for the sequel: MoonUnit Zappa
The director himself considers that his most important mission.
No, the National Review propagandist who wrote the article quoted an interview with Al Jazeera that claimed the director said this. Even if it's an accurate quote and not pulled out of context (which given the source, I doubt), it doesn't reveal anything other than Bolden's crappy media skills. It's awfully credulous of right-wingers to immediately take this at face value, considering that they've spent the last year-and-a-half denouncing everyone who even considered voting for Obama as delusional, besotted fools.
I can hear it right now, complete with the late Derek Wadsworth's "Disco Porno" soundtrack: You LEFT us to ROT...with VENUUUUUUSIAN PLAAAAAAGUE!
I hoped that when NASA was going to look for groups to have an outreach with that lesbians would have been higher than muslims.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
"...Even if it's an accurate quote..."
Dude, see the first two minutes of the posted video.
More importantly, how does this effort help those people in Muslim countries feel about their culture's contribution to the understanding of science and medicine? According to the head of NASA, that is their 'foremost priority'!
Ken
Instead of debating what was and wasn't said, here's the clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlcNUq77_LM
It's not a 10 second clip, it's about 2-3 minutes long so you can understand the context and decide for yourself what the director meant.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
the same trollish article
Trollish? How is linking video of NASA's director saying the actual words trollish? How can you not find it outrageous that the guy running NASA is being used in this ridiculous way? Do you really find this sort of crap to be in keeping with NASA's role and purpose? Do you really think that billions of Muslims will like the US more if we tell them how think about themselves and their history? Oh, and nice straw man there, with the whole Obama-secret-Muslim thing. Way to deflect from the incredible hamfisted-ness and tone deaf condescension on display from the administration.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's awfully credulous of right-wingers to immediately take this at face value, considering that they've spent the last year-and-a-half denouncing everyone who even considered voting for Obama as delusional, besotted fools.
Yes, well, just watch the video so you can relax about all of that. The director seems quite sincere in his description of what the president told him about his three new priorities (of which the "make Muslims feel better about themselves" was the "foremost").
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A friend of mine and I installed the game and instantly joined a PuGed group. All we did was steal the rovers, do sick moon jumps off of small ledges, and sing "We're Whalers on the Moon"...much to the chagrin of our "teammates". I think NASA taught everyone in that game something valuable.
The director seems quite sincere
And we all know that a career bureaucrat would never, ever lie to the media. Can you show me any evidence that NASA has actually acted (or wasted money on) this supposed "priority"?
You're so quick to believe this because it confirms your biases, but every time Obama or one of his political appointees tries to pander to the free-market crowd by talking about privatizing launch vehicles, every right winger screams "bullshit!" (And for all I know you're correct; it seems just as probable to me that he's trying to fuck over the politically connected contractors who've grown fat off NASA contracts.) Meanwhile, he's ordering drones into Pakistan to kill Taliban, along with more than a few civilians, and the pseudo-conservatives accuse him of caring too much about Muslim public opinion because he gave a speech in Cairo.
If they didn't develop the game engine, then just open sourcing the graphics and models would give a good start on developing a full open source replacement.
You're so quick to believe this because it confirms your biases
Actually, no. What I'm doing is pointing out the specific things that he said. There's no "believe" involved. So, which is worse, then? That he really was told what he says he was told, or that he runs NASA, and would lie to the public about what (his words here) the president tasked him with doing? It's one or the other, neither of which is a good thing. Either he's telling the truth (which makes his boss seem like a fatuous twit), or he's lying (which makes his boss, the guy who appointed him to the job, seem like he's made a really poor choice).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You do realize that your source, the SF Examiner...
You do realize that the actual source is video tape of the NASA director explaining this in clear, certain terms. Right?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
All of them
were rockets!
Steam quit unexpectedly.
Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple.
Yes, this message does pop up after the 30,818KB download.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
should like an Icarus planet problem like on Stargate universe.
"Eli Wallace (David Blue) solves a mathematical equation in an online computer game, planted there by Stargate Command."
Damn it, big rocks! Hit 'em hard!
...that I can be on Moon Unit Zappa ;-)
I don't think it's outrageous, no. I think it's more outrageous that you care to misinterpret the statement to create controversy. NASA wants to encourage Muslim countries to participate in international space programs. This fits pretty well with NASA's role and purpose for the last 20 years or so. I doubt you would have bothered if he had said "African countries" but because we got the "Muslim" buzzword in there it's perfect for spreading FUD.
The director didn't say that this was about getting the Muslim culture to participate in international space programs. He said it was about "making them feel good" about their history, relative to science, math, and engineering.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Since when is NASA supposed to help people feel good about shit?
Since it stopped being the sixth branch of the military and became a political football.
As fun as this was, the only thing that makes you play it again is to try and top the scoreboards. At the current playerbase, it was quite easy. Just waiting for someone to beat us and then we'll go again I guess. Would be nice with more types of gameplay and/or locations though.
how about getting to work on an actual moon base instead?
...
It's not flamebait to say:
So you're okay with the primary mission of NASA to make Muslim nations proud of their heritage?
They might as well shut the thing down at this point.
You've can download, press OK and run an executable EXE or download an HTML file that links to an executable JavaScript program, skip the prompting and run it in a sandbox.
EXE don't /have/ to be self extracting archives, though they often are.
Why exactly doesn't installing into the cache count?