Buzz
Next year, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will embark on its mission to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Following a three-year voyage, it will meet the asteroid traveling at 63,000 mph and spend over a year scanning and mapping its surface. The mission's climax involves collecting a sample from Bennu and returning it to Earth. The capsule must separate, endure reentry, and deploy a parachute just 1.9 miles above Utah's desert for a safe landing. OSIRIS-REx acts as a cosmic time capsule, delivering a pristine piece of the early solar system for scientific study.
This remarkable achievement in science and engineering might have gone unnoticed due to the 2013 presidential budget proposal, which cut education and public outreach funding for NASA. As a result, the OSIRIS-REx program had to scale back its public engagement efforts. (This occurred during its confirmation review, where NASA and the mission team finalize deliverables within the allocated budget.)
Dante Lauretta, the mission's principal investigator, took it upon himself to educate the public about the scientific marvels and challenges of space exploration, as well as the political and economic hurdles involved. Lauretta and the OSIRIS-REx team, avid gamers themselves, created the first game blending politics and planetary exploration.
Xtronaut is a strategic card game currently in the early stages of its Kickstarter campaign. Players assume the roles of planetary scientists, using mission cards to determine their destinations within the solar system (such as sending a probe to the methane lakes of Titan or placing a satellite in orbit around Europa). The objective is to construct a rocket and design a mission tailored to the destination. For instance, a Pluto flyby might require gathering cards for an Atlas V core with additional boosters and securing a gravity assist from Jupiter. Action cards introduce challenges like government shutdowns and NASA audits, mirroring real-world obstacles faced by space missions. This game represents a groundbreaking approach to public education in planetary exploration.
POLITICAL BEGINNINGS
When Lauretta first became part of OSIRIS-REx, his responsibilities included overseeing the mission's education and public outreach initiatives. "I truly believe these missions, as incredible as they are for scientific advancement—and I don’t want to downplay the science—also inspire our nation and the world, particularly young people, to dream big and accomplish extraordinary things," he explains to mental_floss.
When the education component was removed from the mission budget (and from NASA altogether), Lauretta admits he was "heartbroken" but unable to challenge the decision due to the tight launch timeline. The spacecraft must launch by September 2016 to reach its target, as orbital mechanics are unforgiving.
Around the same time, the University of Arizona, where he teaches, welcomed a new president, Ann Weaver Hart, who urged faculty to explore entrepreneurial ventures based on their ideas. "I thought to myself, ‘Well, I have an education program I started that’s now inactive, and I have a university president pushing me to start a company. I’ve never done anything like this before, so why not give it a try?’" And so, Xtronaut came into existence.
THE FIRST STAGE
Lauretta frequently enjoys cooperative games such as Castle Panic and Settlers of Catan with his kids. For years, he and the OSIRIS-REx team have hosted monthly game nights, diving into complex strategy games like Twilight Imperium.
For Xtronaut, Lauretta drew inspiration from Dominion, a deck-building game set in a medieval world. Initially, he designed Xtronaut to educate students about the physics of launching objects from Earth. "If you aim to reach a specific destination in the solar system, how much energy is required? What’s the necessary delta-v, or change in velocity? How fast must the spacecraft travel relative to Earth to achieve its goal?"
During the development phase, Lauretta introduced an Xtronaut deck at an OSIRIS-REx game night. The team recommended incorporating challenges beyond rocket construction. Lauretta reflected on the hurdles OSIRIS-REx faced, such as a government shutdown and the Air Force’s theft of a rocket engine. He also considered occasional advantages, like budget surpluses or spare parts from other missions. These ideas shaped the game’s strategic and interactive aspects, refined through a year of play-testing.
ART THROUGH ADVERSITY
Real-life OSIRIS-REx challenges, such as the threat of a government shutdown, are integrated into the game. "That’s one of my favorite cards because it captures one of the most aggravating issues we’ve faced. In late 2013, it impacted the OVIRS instrument. Watching my colleagues’ progress stall for weeks as their flight hardware fell behind schedule was incredibly frustrating." In the game, drawing a government shutdown card results in losing a turn.
The "National Priority" card reflects another real-world obstacle encountered by planetary missions. The OSIRIS-REx launch vehicle relies on the RD-180 rocket engine, produced in Russia. Due to the Ukraine crisis, Congress restricted the number of RD-180s available to the military. Consequently, the U.S. Air Force commandeered the RD-180 originally intended for OSIRIS-REx. A replacement is expected later this year, but any delay could jeopardize the mission. Inspired by this, the team also created an "International Sanctions" card, which restricts a player’s access to a key component of their launch vehicle.
"It’s amusing to be managing OSIRIS-REx now and think, 'What would that situation look like as a card in Xtronaut?'" Lauretta remarks. For instance, the spacecraft is scheduled to launch in September 2016, during hurricane season. "We’ve been discussing how to handle a hurricane if it strikes while the rocket is assembled. How do we secure everything? When do we disassemble and return to the payload handling facility? That’s when I thought, a hurricane would make a great addition to Xtronaut. That’s how the game keeps evolving."
The Xtronaut Kickstarter campaign continues until early October. Barring any real-world "Government Shutdown" scenarios, OSIRIS-REx is set to launch next year.
