Remember when we reported that NASA was planning on releasing an educational Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG)? After NASA revealed the details of the licensing agreement, there was some confusion on how the developers were supposed to make money on the venture. Well, this has all been clarified as of late, so check out the full article for more information.

If you want to develop an MMORPG, you need to have the necessary funding with which to support it. What would you do if someone suddenly cut your budget?

That seems to be the case with NASA and the educational MMORPG that the organization was looking into. Does this mean the end of that MMORPG? Not necessarily. Turn to the full article after the jump to find out what we mean.

Apparently, a zero-G flight isn't enough for Richard Garriott. The well-known game developer has just shelled out about US$ 30 million to become the sixth paying visitor to the International Space Station. Read more in the full article.

NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Learning Technology project is exploring the possibility of developing an Massively Multiplayer Online Game based on accurate simulations.

NASA envisions creating a virtual online laboratory which would allow its users to play around with chemical reactions and experiment with microgravity. The complete details can be found in the full article.

Looks like Lord British's flight to outer space is a go. Richard Garriott, executive producer of, well, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, has officially started preparations to make the trip to the International Space Station (ISS) a year from now. Garriott will be among one of the first batch from the private sector to board the ISS.

Garriott's father, Owen Garriott, a former NASA astronaut, will also be heading for the ISS for research on biotechnology. Richard Garriott himself says of his trip to space:

I am dedicating my spaceflight to science. It is my goal to devote a significant amount of my time aboard the space station to science, engineering and educational projects. I understand the necessity for conducting research in extreme environments whether it is collecting microorganisms from deep sea hydrothermal vents to carrying out experiments in the continuous micro-gravity of Earth orbit. We need to be adventurous in mind and stimulate our intellects to answer today’s most daunting scientific questions and to invent tomorrow’s technological marvels.

Garriott will go to space (it's a little weird to say it so casually) via Space Adventures, the private space travel company. If you have a couple of millions in your pocket maybe you can make the trip yourself and join Tabula Rasa's creator. If not, join us as we sit and wait for the game's release.

NASA is headed towards new territory again. This time not in space per se, but it's geared towards becoming a more transparent agency through its upcoming CosmosCode project.

CosmosCode aims to recruit volunteer programmers who can write code for future space missions. As a matter of fact, meetings are regularly in session at the CoLabs Island in Linden Lab's Second Life. The island is named after NASA's CoLabs Entrepreneur Outreach department.

Essentially, what the program does is that it forms a small base community interested in what NASA does and competent enough to write code which can be used in real projects. Participants from all age groups and locales have so far shown a positive response.

NASA contractor  Cowan-Sharp said "CosmosCode is ... allowing NASA scientists to begin a software project in the public domain, leveraging the true value of open-source software by creating an active community of volunteers."

This is a ground-breaking step for the same agency which has been rumored to have developed space weapons in the Cold War, faked lunar landings and many other dark dealings.

"CoLab is building an infrastructure to encourage and facilitate direct participation from the talented and interested public in NASA's projects and programs," says 28-year old CoLabs project manager Robert Schingler.

The other day, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) called for proposals to develop an MMO video game. The main focus of the project is to be "the front-end of a larger synthetic environment." The organization mentioned that a total amount of US$ 3 million will be allocated for the project and that it would be happy to work with "a partner with commercial-quality game development experience."

Upon reading the same, gaming site Gigagamez sent an email to John Carmack about his take on this. We know you are all familiar with the guy as he is responsible for video games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. But we guess you are not aware that Carmack also owns Armadillo Aerospace with aspirations to conquer orbital space flights.

Anyway, Carmack said that he doesn't have the time to be directly involved with a project like this, but he also commented that he would be very delighted to give NASA an afternoon for pointers and initial help. However, the industry veteran expressed some doubts if an MMO of this kind will take off, so to speak. He remarked,

I do support efforts to enhance math/science/engineering education, and I could imagine something interesting coming out of it if they were willing to focus on game-like scenario and actions, rather than trying to be some sort of generic Second Life sort of environment.

There have been reports several days ago that the NASA project has been cancelled, because some of the agency's officials were not so keen on spending too much money on a video game. The above-mentioned gaming site also sent an email to NASA Learning Technologies' Daniel Laughlin and found out that the green light is still on for the project. Laughlin responded,

I can tell you that NASA is still supportive of the idea but that there have been serious budget cuts this year including news of one right after the announcement went out. For now, we are trying to regroup and find the resource to push ahead with the project. So the plan is still in the works, but the when and the how are up in the air at the moment.

The idea of NASA creating an MMO is very interesting, but given that the project was suddenly cancelled due to recent budget cuts and that even video game developer Carmack implied that he was skeptical about it... well, then we'll just have to wait and see what will happen to the NASA-proposed MMO.