BURP has been sold to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (also known as NASA) for an undisclosed price. Deputy Administrator Dori Leth Barver explains:
Recent budget cuts have made us re-evaluate the space program and focus on goals that are more easily achieved. When we cannot afford to send man and machine to the stars to gather video material we channel our resources into the next-best option: rendered imagery.
Recent advance within the field of rendering technology has made it virtually impossible to determine the difference between the real world and the virtual world anyways.
If everything goes as planned BURP will be able to replace the Hubble space telescope and the James Webb telescope which was previously scheduled for launch in 2014.
Unfortunately due incompatibility with the VxWorks operating systems on major NASA satellites and rovers we will no longer support the Windows and Linux platforms in the clients. Artists will also have to limit their uploads to sessions depicting planetary objects.
