BattleGoat Studios will utilize satellite imagery from NASA in their upcoming geo-political strategy PC title Supreme Ruler 2020. A sequel to BattleGoat's Supreme Ruler 2010, the game prompts players to unite a world of fractured states into a single, global mega-empire using all aspects of government.

The publisher suggests that the use of the high-resolution imagery creates a "unique feeling of accuracy", allowing players to zoom into small regions and capitals from outer space while managing their empire.

Supreme Ruler 2020 is scheduled for a spring 2008 release.

NASA is exploring the possibility of developing an MMO aimed at students which would "simulate real NASA engineering and science missions", the BBC reported today.

The government agency published a formal query to developers who may be interested in developing the MMO, detailing their expectations for the project. NASA hopes that the project, which could act as a recruitment tool, will help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

"A NASA-based MMO could provide opportunities for students to investigate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics career paths while participating in engaging game-play," said the query.

NASA isn't the only organization looking to use contemporary gaming standards to recruit; the US military has also pursued a renewed focus to use gaming technology for training and simulation purposes.

Hey neeto, NASA has released the details on their planned mission to Mars in 2003. They kinda goofed up the past 2 missions (My favorite being that metric system mix-up) but fear not! NASA is gonna spend another 400million and hopefully they'll land on the planet this time. This is just a robotic rover that will drive around on the surface, not a human mission just yet.

NASA’s plan had called for its 2003 mission to be followed by further probes that eventually would bring Martian samples back to Earth for analysis. But the precise schedule and goals for long-term Mars exploration are still under discussion as part of the space agency’s wider-ranging strategic review.

If you call yourself a computer geek this stuff has to interest ya. Its almost as cool as scratchin yur gonads with your eyes closed and a stain on your shirt.

As a follow up to Steve's story this morning, JLannoo emailed us about this article on ABCNews. Basically it's pretty much impossible someone could've hacked the communication channel between NASA and its astronauts. It would require a satellite uplink as the NASA command center isn't hooked up to the Internet, and there's no way an individual could gather enough resources for that.

Being as it is the 4th of July we should celebrate what is great about America or something right? Well it has just been released that a hacker back in 1997 actually disrupted a NASA mission while it was in progress interrupting NASA's ability to monitor the life signs of the astronauts.

We had an activity at NASA center where a hacker was overloading our system...to such an extent that it interfered with communications between the NASA center, some medical communications and the astronaut aboard the shuttle

Yeah, this story is actually 2 days old but so is the glass of milk on my desk, and I'm still lookin at it.