With Xtronaut Game, Space Exploration Is in the Cards

A new game, created by a NASA mission scientist, lets players take on the real-world challenges and opportunities of developing a space program: battling budget cuts, competing projects and even a government shutdown to launch research vessels into the solar system. Dante Lauretta is principal investigator on the first U.S. mission to bring asteroid samples back to Earth, called OSIRIS-REx. While preparing the mission to the asteroid Bennu, which is now scheduled for launch in September, he was