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“I recall being amazed at the quality of the games and surprised at the updated graphics.

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“I remember playing an old simulator called Shuttle in the early 90s and then flying a shuttle in the flight simulator, X-Plane,” says Lantz. It’s not just about providing PR to a space industry, it’s about interesting gamers in aeronautics as a viable career.

As Nasa develops plans to land men on an asteroid by 2025, and with a manned mission to Mars tentatively slated for launch in the early 2020s, it’s even possible we might see games giving real-time access to content, providing a sense of what it’s like to venture onto other worlds.

Joining up with Kerbal Space Program has been part of this. “With over 4 million people watching the last launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and 3.2 million watching the landing of Mars Curiosity rover through various digital outlets, I’d say interest and desire has never been higher.' Why astronauts play space games “As we continue to become more connected through social media, public ignorance of public and private space exploration missions has shrunk” says David Lantz, a flight controller directly inside Nasa’s mission control.

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Using sites like Facebook, Twitter and its own Nasa TV digital channel, it is building connections with the younger generation, explaining its projects, posting videos and live streams and designing interactive applications around its satellite and Mars Rover initiatives.

The sim allows you to build a variety of spacecraft, from rockets to satellites. Reaching for the stars should be the next step for us as a species, especially as we’re so obviously exceeding the current resources the Earth has to offer.” “I think it’s a shame,” says Falanghe, “not just for Nasa but for mankind in general, that there isn’t as much interest in space exploration these days as there should be. Of that, just $89m is allocated to educating the next generation of astronauts, scientists and engineers. In truth, Nasa has requested a budget of $17.5bn for fiscal 2015. As recently as 1997, the public estimated that up to 20% of government budget was allocated to Nasa – a $328bn injection that would almost certainly have meant a successful manned Mars mission by now. The American public doesn’t just lack understanding about what Nasa undertakes, it also grossly overestimates the budget it receives from the US government. The public relations boom of the moon landings and the 1980s shuttle programme has long faded, and amid a biting recession, there is apathy and misunderstanding about the organisation. For us, it was a great learning experience – none of us in the team have any formal background in aerospace or any related field.” Public relations for space travelįor Nasa, there was another motive. “When we first started, we had very little help from experts, save what we could research on our own. “It’s been a truly amazing experience,” says Falanghe. Players can now experiment with a genuine space programme, using Nasa rocket parts. In March 2013, Squad received an intriguing tweet: “Interested in exploring an asteroid with us?” It was from Nasa, and after a year of cooperation, the Kerbal team was able to implement the real-life Asteroid Redirect Mission into its game. The success of the game hadn’t gone unnoticed. “It’s about exploring and reaching out to something that was a complete unknown not too long ago.”

“It’s about how you can improve the design so it doesn’t happen again” he says. “It’s about seeing your creations explode and trying to figure out why,” he says. Felipe Falanghe, Kerbal’s creator and lead developer at Squad, has perhaps been surprised by the success of the title, but understands its appeal.

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Users began modifying the code and adding new features, and when it was released onto leading PC games platform Steam in spring 2013, it became one of the top five best-selling titles on the site’s “early access” section – a huge new audience joined the experiment. The community rises, Nasa noticesĪnd as with Minecraft, a community quickly grew around Kerbal, despite its unfinished state. It's no wonder people are calling this Minecraft in space – it has that same sense of creativity and possibility. The possibilities for construction are almost endless, and the most experienced players are able to dock craft in orbit to create space stations, land on the nearby moon, and venture into deep space.

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Here, the player’s aim is simple design and construct spacecraft in your own personal space center.Īs you succeed with flight missions, you’ll accrue more funding and expand your expertise, but the game also acts as completely free sandbox experience with myriad options for inventive design.

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'Okay, where does the spoiler go?' Photograph: PRīut then in 2011 a development studio based in Mexico released an early version of Kerbal Space Program, an intricately detailed space flight sim for Windows and Mac.

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