Garriott on the vomit comet.
Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online and more recently the developer behind NCSoft’s mighty sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa, is going into space. Not a word of a lie...
Space Adventures Ltd, a company which organises private space flights, has announced that Garriott has begun preparations for what the company calls a "commercially active" mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Alas, he's not going (solely) to be the first man ever to play an MMO in space. “I am dedicating my spaceflight to science”, said Garriott. “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 added.
The fact that Garriott's dad just so happens to be former NASA astronaut, Owen Garriott, and on the advisory board for Space Adventures probably helped pique his interest.
This won't be Garriott's first zero-G experience, having taken a ride on the Vomit Comet (you know, that plane that turns its engines off and drops like a stone to simulate zero-G) last month.
He is, you'll be pleased to know, paying for his own flight. He should be leaving the atmosphere in October next year.
You can catch SPOnG's E3 interview with Richard Garriott here.
Space Adventures Ltd, a company which organises private space flights, has announced that Garriott has begun preparations for what the company calls a "commercially active" mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Alas, he's not going (solely) to be the first man ever to play an MMO in space. “I am dedicating my spaceflight to science”, said Garriott. “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 added.
The fact that Garriott's dad just so happens to be former NASA astronaut, Owen Garriott, and on the advisory board for Space Adventures probably helped pique his interest.
This won't be Garriott's first zero-G experience, having taken a ride on the Vomit Comet (you know, that plane that turns its engines off and drops like a stone to simulate zero-G) last month.
He is, you'll be pleased to know, paying for his own flight. He should be leaving the atmosphere in October next year.
You can catch SPOnG's E3 interview with Richard Garriott here.
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