NASA To Lease Unreal 3 Engine

After being licensed by a lot of the developers in the industry, Epic's Unreal 3 engine is now being leased by an agency of the US government, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), who plan on making a 10-20 minute game by the way.

The general idea is that NASA's Learning Technologies Office got a small amount of funding to start a prototype NASA-based game. They are now working with the America's Army development team and the Federation of American Scientists to make a short (10 to 20 minutes) prototype. They are using the Unreal 3 engine from Epic, so they're hoping for commercial quality results.

The prototype is expected to be an introduction to NASA's Vision for Space Exploration — apparently, NASA is planning to head back to the moon by 2020, and by 2035, a human on Mars is planned. The prototype is expected to introduce the vision and give people a chance to appreciate the experience of being on the International Space Station and on the moon — separately, of course.

Expect highly detailed Martians.