The brainiacs at NASA's Goddard Space Center are letting their creative side show with the release of a tabletop role-playing game called The Lost Universe. The premise bends both time and space.
A dark mystery has settled over the city of Aldastron on the rogue planet of Exlaris. Researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos have disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth’s timeline. Only an ambitious crew of adventurers can uncover what was lost. Are you up to the challenge?
The villain in this drama is a dragon, and the action stays on the planet (as far as I know), but it's a different planet with different properties because it's been knocked out of its orbit by a black hole. That opens the door to superpowers and magic, although we can assume science plays a part. Participants create their characters, negotiate a map of their area, and perform challenges on their way to setting the timeline right.
All the materials are, of course, freed to download and are public domain because it's NASA. One can imagine that the management got wind of the fantasies of Goddard's staff and decided to dedicate a side project to get more people onto NASA's website and to keep their most valued scientists from getting burned out at work. Besides, it's great PR! The Lost Universe is not rocket science, but it was developed by rocket scientists. -via Metafilter