The friendly (overworked, underfunded) folks over at NASA are in the process of constructing their own Massively Multiplayer around the theme of constructing and maintaining a colony or base on some godforsaken planet with no breathable atmosphere, nasty radiation and other bare metal survival issues. Sounds like some good times.

Since this will be an MMO, look for some nice social elements like trading mined goods like Helium3 and such. It’s all being put togather by Virtual Heroes, the makers of America’s Army and will feature the spiffy Unreal 3 graphic engine. This news has me all nerded up. I get the feeling this thing is going to be nicely stuffed with science. Pretty and sciencey plus real annoying human neighbours on a distant planet. I’m in. Via Gamespy.