<\/span>The game, released yesterday on Valve’s Steam video game network, imagines the year 2020 when we have the meager start of a lunar base near Shackleton crater, not far from the Moon’s south pole. A meteor strike disables the base’s life-support (it’s not just me) and one or more players must get it running again in about 25 minutes.<\/p> This requires an understanding the base’s systems as well as building and maneuvering (or racing…) your own robots into areas too dangerous for humans. The game is a project launched by NASA’s Learning Technologies<\/a> program and is a proof-of-concept meant to see if a video game can inspire youth interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.<\/p> I’m not sure how more expert gamers will feel, but my geeky heart leap when I saw the animated NASA logo in the game’s opening credits–not to mention the lunar footprints left behind on my trail of destruction.<\/p> Follow DISCOVER on Twitter. <\/em><\/a><\/p> Related content: I spent some fifteen minutes on the moon yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. A meteor strike knocked out my base’s life support; I crashed a robot into a NASA supply shed; and, while I fiddled around with a welding torch, a … Continue reading
Discoblog: Buzz Aldrin Explains: How to Take a Whiz on the Moon<\/a>
Discoblog: NASA iPhone App Lets You Drive a Lunar Rover (Just Try Not to Get Stuck)<\/a>
Discoblog: California Lays Claim to Astronaut Garbage Left Behind on the Moon<\/a>
Discoblog: Trippy Lunar Opera: Haydn at the Hayden Planetarium<\/a><\/p><\/a>
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