Armadillo's Scorpius craft is the first in a field of entrants to successfully complete the requirements laid out by NASA, which involved ascending 164 feet, flying to a spot 164 feet away, landing, taking off then flying back to where it started. If neither of the two competing craft can satisfy the requirements by October 31, Armadillo will scoop the prize by default, which stands at a cool $1 million.

And after the cash? Next stop, space.

"Since the Lunar Lander Challenge is quite demanding in terms of performance, with a few tweaks our Scorpius vehicle actually has the capability to travel all the way to space," says Carmack.

"We'll be moving quickly to do higher-altitude tests, and we can go up to about 6000 feet here at our home base in Texas before we'll have to head to New Mexico where we can really push the envelope. We already have scientific payloads from universities lined up to fly as well, so this will be an exciting next few months for commercial spaceflight."

John Carmack's Armadillo Finally Wins Lunar Landing Challenge [Gizmodo]

Apparently I am not the only one with a craving for action-packed, massively-multiplayer online space combat. According to Codemasters, more than 250,000 individuals have signed up for a chance to test out NetDevil's baby, with more flocking to the website to register every day. Needless to say, the developer is extremely excited.

"Our players' enthusiasm continues to exceed our expectations at every milestone and we are extremely excited to achieve such fantastic support," said Scott Brown, President of NetDevil. "We have thoroughly enjoyed obtaining some valuable feedback from the people in our Friends & Family test, helping us to take the next major step towards launch."

See? I didn't need to say it.

Of course, more folks signing up means less chance of you getting in, but look on the bright side...okay, I got nothing.

The official announcement for Star Trek D-A-C doesn't really offer anything new in the way of game information. From McWhertor's report at GDC we learned that it was a top-down shooter with a strong emphasis on online multiplayer, with single player, online co-op, and online competitive modes. We also knew it was coming in May, though now we know that the Xbox 360 version drops that month, with the PlayStation Network and PC versions coming soon after.

THat leaves these new screenshots, though lookig through them we managed to find at least two we've already seen. It's just one of the perils of working with a 43-year-old science fiction franchise. It's all been done before.

Most of the screenshots I've seen so far for Star Trek Online focus on various vessels in outer space, and while they are lovely, there's only so much you can do with outer space. It's nice to get the odd glimpse of what we'll see when we actually wander about our ships, or beam down to the planet for a little bit of exploration.

Is it sad that the first thought in my head upon seeing the character in the white and blue uniform was how long it would take for those outfits to show up at Star Trek convention? Not on me, of course. No, I'm all Klingon, all the time.

The trailer does an excellent job of highlighting Eve Online's strengths while skipping over the game's weaknesses, which I suppose is what a good trailer is supposed to do. An excellent voice over grants the production an air of mystery and power as they highlight some of the most beautiful space scenes available in any video game, showing off massive battles waged across a backdrop of shining stars and swirling nebulae.

What the trailer most notably does not show is the first lonely hours spent wandering around the expansive universe, with nothing but the generally unhelpful help channel to keep you company, or the user interface that clutters up said beautiful vistas. It's essentially the trailer version of a photoshopped MySpace picture. Still, I'd hit it.

Fresh from his historic trip to the International Space Station, Richard Garriott is making a slightly less historic trip to the Zach Theater in Austin, Texas, on the 24th of January in order to tell everybody willing to pay $65 for a ticket about the experience. Shows will run at 2:30 PM and 8:00 PM, during which the gaming pioneer will discuss what it was like following in the footsteps of his astronaut father.

While I doubt he'll touch much on gaming issues, such as his recent departure from NCsoft, there is a Q&A session after each lecture, which I feel should needs to be positively brimming with questions about the utter failure of his latest MMORPG, Tabula Rasa. If you're going to be in the Austin area on the 24th, pony up the $65 and go make us proud.

Extreme Voyage: Richard Garriott's 12 Days on the International Space Station [Zach Theatre via Massively]

John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace is investing in what it calls the "Fishbowl Spaceship" - an orbital bubble designed to let space tourists roll around in freefall like.. well, goldfish. Space goldfish.

Yes, it does look crazy and is probably designed purely to distract from Carmack's real goal of building a portal to hell in the caverns of Mars. Armadillo hopes to have a prototype in orbit by the end of next year, with manned flights in 2010 at a low, low price of $100,000.

Fishbowl Spaceship to give tourists a breathtaking 360-degree view [Dvice.com]

Players will definitely be given full control. A large portion of starship combat in Star Trek Online is tactical – maneuvering your ship into position so you protect your vital systems as you attack your opponent's weakest side. You need to be “in control” of your ship in order for that to work well and be fun.

Exactly! Nice to see Cryptic understands where their prospective players are coming from. The latest update also goes over the skill-based melee combat, even mentioning a certain Vulcan maneuver that is sure to have fans of the pointy-eared logic-addicts grabbing ineffectually at collarbones for days to come.

Ask Cryptic (October 27, 2008) [Star Trek Online via Eurogamer]

Not plucky Lord British, though. No, the good lord is safe in his heaven and has found the time to transmit a coded message of hope to us earth-bound types.

The multisquillionaire held up a card containing the message shortly after reaching orbit - the message is encoded in Logos Elements - the fictional runic system used in Garriott's game Tabula Rasa.

Fans of the game have now decoded the runes and found it to be a quote - hit the jump to see what Lord British thinks we ought to know.

"Earth is the cradle of humanity but mankind will not be in the cradle forever."
-Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (Soviet Rocket Scientist)

Wow, that's like, really deep.

Richard Garriott Sends Message During Launch

Not sure if there's any experimenting on the "immortality drive" to be done or not, but that was the keystone of his pre-flight hype. The drive contains the digitized DNA sequences of a bunch of earth types — our editor included, along with Stephen Colbert and Stephen Hawking. It'll stay aboard the space station in case life on earth is wiped out or something.

Garriott reportedly paid $30 million for his flight but said he was able to recoup "a significant slice" of that beforehand. He gets back to earth Oct. 24.

US Game Designer Blasts Into Space with DNA Cargo [Associated Press via Wired, AP Photo]

It's one thing to adjust to life in Star City—but quite another to endure the confounding, confining, and sometimes just plain goofy training regimen. The first challenge is the language. Garriott is an autodidact wunderkind who persuaded his high school teachers that learning Basic code counted as fulfilling his foreign-language requirement. He won't be as fortunate at Star City. All of the instructions, instrumentation, and communications in space will be in Russian. So, for four hours a day, Garriott and Halik slave over fat, dusty language books in class, then tote them back to the Prophy to study more at night.

Great stuff. Click below to check out the full piece.

Going to Space? [Wired]

Just head over to www.jumpgateevolution.com and use your powers of deduction to determine where to go from there. Hope to see some of you in beta!

Along with all of the healthy player killing comes an entirely new region called Black Rise, which contains 49 new star systems and 40 new stations, many of which are already sworn to a specific faction.

It sounds to me like folks hungry for some ship-on-ship PVP might want to sign up for their umpteenth free trial of EVE Online.

Empyrean Age Features Page [EVE Online]

Wright will be joined at the public event by a variety of scientific speakers, artists and musicians. The developers talk will focus on astrobiology, the history of the Russian space program and Spore. The game will also be on display.

Back when I was at the Palm Beach Post I was actually one of three reporters who helped cover shuttle launches. Watching a shuttle literally push itself away from the Earth and rip through gravity's pull is probably one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life.... and there was swag. No lie, NASA actually had a little kiosk set up at every launch selling shit. I think it was because all of the visiting general and dignitaries always wanted shirts and hats to give to their kids. So funny.

Yuri's Night

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/videogames/39/

NASA is in a position to develop an online game that functions as a persistent, synthetic environment supporting education as a laboratory, a massive visualisation tool, and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging, gameplay experience.

Game designer Richard Garriott blogs about his weightless experience with Professor Stephen Hawking:

On Thursday, April 26, the weather was great and we were all excited to go on the day's journey. The event ran even smoother than the rehearsals, and the pilots flew the best parabolas I have experienced in my few trips. The Professor was grinning widely throughout the whole experience. He not only floated weightless but completed several spins while floating free inside the cabin. Professor Hawking did all this while free of his wheelchair for the first time in over forty years!

Professor Hawking himself is also an incredibly engaging and responsive individual. His enthusiasm and enjoyment of the event was always evident. His ability to handle the crush of activity and interest was impressive. He met innumerable people, prepared and gave a variety of presentations, and answered numerous press questions. Between each event, he would be extremely busy preparing his notes for the next presentation in order to present his feelings before and after each phase properly. Extraordinary!

Extraordinary, indeed! Brian Ashcraft

Garriott Blogs Space [Tabula Rasa via Game|Life]

Yesterday famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking joined game developer Richard Garriott for a ride into the edge of space.

The two were among about two dozen who boarded a modified 727 at Cape Canaveral that then performed eight parabolas.

The commercial vomit comet flight gave Hawking a chance to float free of his wheelchair, the first time he has been physically boundless in four decades.

"Six parabolas really was the intended cutoff point," said Richard Garriott, son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott.

"But he was having so much fun, we went for two more, and then we thought we'd better quit while we're ahead."

Hawking said he wanted to make the flight for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he believes Earth is headed for disaster and that the humans species will need a new home in the cosmos.

"I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically-engineered virus or other dangers," Hawking said.

"I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

He also said he wanted to prove that people with disabilities can aspire to spaceflight, too, and Diamandis said he did a good job.

Pretty damn cool. I wonder if Garriott was able to talk with Hawking at all during the flight. I'd love to hear what sorts of things they'd shoot the breeze about. Brian Crecente

'Space, here I come' [Florida Times]

Richard Garriott and Stephen Hawking are teaming up, unfortunately, it's not for a game.

No, the developer and the physicist are going to be taking a trip on the vomit comet in a few weeks.

The April 16 zero-gravity flight will be Garriott's fourth (he's an investor in the Zero Gravity Corp.) and Hawking's first.

He said he's taking his first non-grav flight to show "that people need not be limited by physical handicaps, as long as they are not disabled in spirit."

I can't think of a better person to prove it. Brian Crecente

Game Creator, Physicist to Leave Gravity Behind [Austin-American Statesman]