We recently received a very original and special email from David Saint-Jacques, a Canadian astronaut from NASA, currently on mission in the International Space Station.
David is a board game addict, and plays from time to time on BGA. He usually plays here Jaipur, Carcassonne and sometimes Puerto Rico. The extraordinary fact is that he also plays online directly from orbit!
Believe it or not, but the astronauts in the ISS have an Internet connexion available. It is slow, but it is functional, and apparently it is good enough to play on BGA! During one of his (few) free time slot, David played a game and probably became the first person to ever play on BGA from Space, and maybe the first person to ever play board games from Space. It's a small step for (a) man, but a giant leap for a Meeple!
But David's message is going way further: it seems that NASA is looking for new activities for astronauts, in order to stimulate their cerebral capacities while improving the ambience between teammates. Board games is of course their first choice ... except that without gravity this is really hard to manipulate boards, cards and dice... This is why NASA is thinking about using online boardgaming platform "officially" during its long-term missions.
Following this, before the end of this year, we are going to organize on BGA a big contest to select a dozen of candidates for a future job of "Board games instructor" (these are the words from the Agency). The Job Of Your Dreams: you will organise board game sessions for the astronaut crews - on Earth of course, but why not in Space at some point in the future?
Get ready to launch!
UPDATE April 2nd: April's fool! Thank you everyone for your nice comments 🙂
Idi do zvezda sa BGA!
Nedavno smo dobili email sa vrlo originalna i posebno iz David Saint-Jacques, kanadski astronauta iz NASA-e, trenutno na misiju u međunarodne svemirske stanice.
David je zavisan od društvena igra i igra s vremena na vreme na BGA.
Obično se ovde kocka Jaipur, Carcassonne i ponekad u Portoriku.
Izvanredno je tu i on svira online direktno iz orbite!
Verovali ili ne, ali astronaute u Isu su dostupni na Internet mlaрima.
To je spor, ali je funkcionalan i navodno je dovoljno dobar da svira na BGA!
Tokom jednog od njegovih (nekoliko) slobodan termin, David su igrali i verovatno je postao prva osoba koja je ikada igrao na BGA iz svemira, i možda prva osoba koja je ikad igrao igre na tabli iz svemira.
To je mali korak za (a) covek, ali veliki korak za jedan Meeple!
Ali David se poruka ide mnogo dalje: čini se da NASA je u potrazi za novim aktivnosti za astronaute, kako bi se stimulisao njihovih cerebralni kapaciteta uz istovremeno unapređivanje ambijent između saigrača.
Igre na tabli je naravno njihov prvi izbor...
Osim toga bez gravitacije, ovo je stvarno teško manipulisati daske, karte i kocke...
Zato NASA razmišlja o upotrebi na mreži boardgaming platforma „zvanično” tokom svoje dugoročne misije.
Posle ovoga, pre kraja ove godine, idemo za organizovanje na BGA veliki konkurs za izbor deset kandidata za buduće posao od „igre na tabli instruktor” (to su reči iz agencije).
To je posao iz snova: organizovaće odbora igru sesije za astronauta posade - na zemlju, naravno, ali zašto ne u prostoru u nekom trenutku u budućnosti?
Spremite se za lansiranje!
UPDATE 2 aprila: Je Aprililili!
Hvala vam svima na komentarima, lepo