NASA has announced the immediate availability of the game Space Race Blast Off on Facebook. This game contains questions on various scientific and technological topics but also about NASA’s history and pop culture.
Players can choose from 14 predefined avatars which include an alien, an android and a robot. The game is generally multiplayer so if there are other players two of them are selected to play with you, otherwise you can play alone.
The game consists of 10 multiple-choice questions. Each answer is worth 100 points and the fastest player to answer earns 20 extra points. In the end, the winner advances to another round where a final question can give a prize which consists of a badge that depicts a NASA astronaut, a spaceship or an astronomical object. Those who manage to reach 1,500 points can get more badges.
The game provides Montly and Lifetime statistics that will allow players who demonstrate the best knowledge of the questions topics to lead in those rankings.
Clearly, recently NASA is doing public relations work to reach young people in particular. Last year, NASA participated in an initiative that asked students to create an experiment to be carried out in the International Space Station. In recent months, American schools have been involved in a contest to name the the two GRAIL spacecrafts. Now, NASA launched the Space Race Blast Off game on Facebook to take advantage of the huge presence of users on the most famous social network.
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Of course, Facebook users are scattered all over the world and belong to all age ranges but there are certainly millions of American students who are the main target of NASA’s educational campaign. In fact, just like the contest concerning the GRAIL spacecrafts, the game Space Race Blast Off is designed to arouse the interest of young people in NASA, its space missions and science in general.
The game also includes questions that wink to science fiction fans because after all it’s a game that brings together education and entertainment. I really hope it’s successful and brings more young people closer to science.
