Matt sent me the below link and I found an interesting read. The article also has a link to JPL's YouTube Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation which if you haven't seen should be entertaining.
What was talked about was the developing video game 'Kerbal Space Program' where you can build your own spaceship. While waiting for the real thing maybe you could invent your own rocket or at least come to grips with what it means to be a rocket scientist. :-)
Some more information links follow.
- LRK -
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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab is obsessed with a certain game, and I bet you can guess what it is
- BY ANDREW GROEN
- 6/18/13 AT 9:30 AM
FEATURE
NASA had a booth at this year's E3, and I stopped by for a chat with one of their software engineers to talk about why NASA decided to have a presence at a video game expo. During the course of our conversation we got to talking about video games. It turns out that quite a few of the folks at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are video gamers and they're obsessed with one game in particular.
“The only thing that would make this week complete, and you may or may not know about this game, is if the developers of a game called Kerbal Space Program showed up. Half of JPL is playing that game right now,” said Douglas Ellison, a visualization producer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He's one of the people who helps make JPL's scientifically exact digital recreations of NASA missions like the Curiosity Mars Landing
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Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation
Uploaded on Jun 24, 2011
This 11-minute animation depicts key events of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, which will launch in late 2011 and land a rover, Curiosity, on Mars in August 2012
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Kerbal Space Program is a sort of cartoonish space mission simulator. The player is given command of a space program run by little tadpole-esque creatures called Kerbals. The game is a sandbox title where the player can build completely custom rocket ships to blast off the planet and attempt to fly their ship through space to reach other planets and moons. You could even piece together your own space station or build a little solar-powered rover to take with you on your voyage.The game is growing all the time, because technically it hasn't actually released yet. The game's developers, the indie team Squad from Mexico City, have launched Kerbal Space Program in a Minecraft-esque paid Alpha. So the game is constantly getting new and better features.
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I had not seen this web site before and will spend some more time with it even though I am not an avid gamer. (never seemed to get above level one in whatever I tried.) If you are a gamer maybe something you can use.
- LRK -
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Back to the developing video game 'Kerbal Space Program' if you care to follow what IS developing see link below and maybe watch some YouTube videos of what others have done..
- LRK -
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Kerbal Space Program Forum
Welcome to the Kerbal Space Program Forum.
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KerbalSPOfficial uploaded and posted 3 weeks ago
Recovered Munar Footage from the Kerbal Space Center!!
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While poking around on 'The Penny Arcade Report' they had some comments about Microsoft's new Xbox One's usage restrictions and how they will affect military gaming enthusiasts.
- LRK -
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The military comes out swinging against Xbox One’s usage restrictions
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Microsoft says troops should use old gear instead
Jun. 14, 2013 - 06:00AM
Navy Lt. Scott Metcalf was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Xbox One. Now he’s not even sure if he’ll buy one.
Indeed, for many in the military, the next-gen Xbox console may offer more endemic frustration than grand epic gaming, particularly for those deployed downrange, aboard ships and stationed overseas.
Xbox One, Microsoft’s much-anticipated new console, got its big reveal at the Electronic Entertainment Expo gamers’ convention in Los Angeles. Company honchos are confident it will come to dominate living rooms over the next decade not only as the gaming delivery vehicle of choice, but also with a barrage of other content, including a suite of apps, streaming video and music.
There’s one big but, however: To get all this entertainment awesomeness, the console will have to check in online with the Microsoft mothership at least once a day.
“With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection,” an Xbox spokesperson tell Military Times.
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Even though I have not been a gamer I have often dreamed of having a program that could project a lunar base right in front of me on my coffee table in 3D. You know, that science fiction stuff you see in the movies and TV. The new smart phones can let you loo at the display and overlay what the camera is viewing so we are close. NASA is beginning to pay more attention to video gaming and hopefully someone will think that a virtual moon base game could help sell the idea of going back to the Moon. Maybe crowd sourcing the construction of the game would develop a greater awareness. At least this article expresses an interest in being in your living room. What would you like to see?
- LRK -
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How NASA wants to use video games to make us all ‘Space Invaders’ Yannick LeJacqNBC News contributor
April 1, 2013 at 4:17 PM ET
“You are the space invaders,” NASA manager Jeff Norris declared last week to a packed audience at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.
It was a dramatic ending to a surprise talk scheduled at the last minute into a conference usually packed with the most arcane and theoretical pieces of trade information game developers swap with one another over a week at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. Gamers and developers alike may have been confused to see real-world space exploration suddenly creep into a flurry of conversations about virtual worlds, but, as Norris explained during his presentation, NASA’s projects have often overlapped with the work of game designers.
To start, there’s the “hallowed ground of the living room,” where viewers first witnessed the legendary Apollo 11 landing, which Norris said was the most watched television broadcast at the time in history.”
The living room is “a place we'd like to be again,” Norris said.
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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