Moonbase Alpha Now Hiring!

Image via Wikipedia

Put in your application today for a regolith mining job at NASA’s Moonbase Alpha Lunar Station at the south pole of the Moon!

Ok, I’m kidding, but wouldn’t it be cool? 

Actually, during the summer NASA’s Learning Technologies and Marshal Space Flight Center released a free multi-player network computer game (set up like a first-person shooter) that simulates a meteor strike on a fictional lunar station in Shackleton Crator that damages the station’s life support system and it’s your job to repair it!

The game can be played by up to six players.  If you log on as a single player or pair, then you have to make quick repairs to get the station viable within a given time frame.  If more than two players then the base is larger with more work to do to meet the challenge.

You haved the following…

• You and other online players
• One lunar rover that can carry one object and up to two people.
• Any number of two types of remote-controlled robots.
• One Equipment Shed containing tools, spare parts, and other equipment.
• One Command Station to oversee operations and remotely pilot the rover.

Click here for the complete game manual.

NASA is also working on an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game called Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond.  Apparently, it was scheduled for release about now.

http://www.astronautmmo.com/dmf/

Related Articles

• Free PC Game on Steam : Moonbase Alpha (5dollarsorless.com)
• NASA Invites Gamers To Explore Moonbase Alpha [Science] (kotaku.com)
• Science!: A Look at Moonbase Alpha (escapistmagazine.com)
• Become A Virtual Astronaut With NASA’s Free Moonbase Alpha Game (makeuseof.com)

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~ by Bill Housley on December 16, 2010.