Beam Me In, Scotty

If the forthcoming Star Trek MMO isn't enough to satisfy your fantasies for epic space travel (or if you just like your MMOs served up with a healthy side of RL-relevant content), then do we have some news for you! 

TN guest author Mark Wallace has posted a nice piece about NASA's plans to develop an educational space MMO.  They have earmarked budgeted $3 million and have put out a call for proposals for the project.  It's all part of a larger strategy to increase public awareness and occupational interest in the space program - like the 1960s Star Trek  and Buck Rogers, but for the 21st century, seducing a whole new crop of impressionable young minds into being scientists, engineers, astronauts and such:

To accomplish the VSE goals of returning to the moon and going beyond to Mars, NASA must find ways to enhanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. This intramural call for proposal ideas seeks to develop a persistent, online, synthetic environment that will support NASA's STEM education goals and allow millions more American to share in the experience of NASA science and exploration virtually.

...NASA faces the prospect of having an insufficiency of trained professionals in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration. The shortage of a highly skilled technical workforce is not a NASA-unique problem, but one faced by the Nation as a whole. It is shortsighted to think that NASA should expect to attract a greater proportion of a shrinking pool of new STEM graduates in the near future. The best course for NASA and the Nation is to expand the overall number of STEM graduates. Increasing the STEM graduate pool requires either guiding more students onto paths that lead to STEM degrees, increasing the percentage of students on those pathways that complete STEM degrees, or both.

It occurs to me that various military organizations could similarly leverage the rabid faction-orientation of games like World of Warcraft and get people riled up about fighting enemies, etc.   What ever happened to all of those military MMO projects anyway?

There's still a month to register your intent if you'd like to put in a proposal!  You might consider spending some quality time prepping your pitch, too...

Comments

[chas]

1.

Lisa> It occurs to me that various military organizations could similarly leverage the rabid faction-orientation of games like World of Warcraft and get people riled up about fighting enemies, etc. What ever happened to all of those military MMO projects anyway?

I know it's not the focus of the article, but when I was in the Army in the early 90's, people would joke about how not allowing people with certain criminal records deprived the army of some of its best candidates.

An officer once explained to us that aggressive killers were the LAST thing the Army wanted. They wanted people to take orders.

Sometimes that means marching instead of fighting. Sometimes that means holding your ground and NOT pursuing a fleeing enemy. Sometimes that means treating a prisoner humanely. Sometimes,that means being cautious in your targeting and avoid trigger-happy friendly fire or "collateral damage" systems. Oftentimes, that means acting as a force of occupation and treating the locals with compassion- in an effort to win their hearts and minds.

Faction-based gameplay works against most of those goals. The rather basic combat resolution system we have doesn't help either. Heck, even the lack of friendly fire incidents can condition a soldier to be too careless. You just end up conditioning a more closed-minded and trigger-happy soldier dehumanizes the enemy and locals to the point they don't offer humane treatment.

(On the plus side, raid "metagame" (planning, execution, and after-action review) can be positive.)

[whomever]

2.

So now the quests will be to a run to mars and collect some martian water to deliver to the output on Junipter while dodging asteroids? Then we can launch a counter attack on the alien orcs.

[Raph]

3.

I got email from NASA (!) shortly after blogging this very story saying that the whole thing has been postponed.

[Erillion]

4.

>>saying that the whole thing has been postponed.
>>>

Lemme guess ... lack of funding ....

Have fun

Erillion

[Ren Reynolds]

5.

The application of MMOs is a recurring theme, especially their involvement with military stuff. On the one hand we have America’s Army on the other the story that was knocking around a while ago about the Israeli arms ‘issues’ with roleplayers.

Anyway, why do NASA need a new MMO, isn't EvE all you need to know about the future of space?

[Richard Bartle]

6.

If only you'd waited a day before posting this, Lisa: James T. Kirk's birthday is on the 22nd March.

Richard

[Mark Wallace]

7.

wow, Richard, that is some excellent trivia to pull out, thank you.

btw, the CFP has now been mysteriously postponed, if you look at the site again. Hopefully that just means people have more time to get their ideas together, not that some bigwig is stomping on NASA's fun.

[Chas]

8.

Have we ever known NASA to NOT delay a launch?

[Erillion]

9.

>>> Have we ever known NASA to NOT delay a launch? >>>>

Yes. The one time I visited the USA and Cape Canaveral, the shuttle launch with the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was on time and a perfect launch. Very impressive. Especially when the wall of sound from the engines ripples the oceans surface on its way to the place where I was watching.