Do you have any links to software that you were planning on using to support this. I too would like to build something like this, but I haven't ever seen any software to go with it.

DnD is my tabletop game of choice right now, but I am open to others.

What they should do is use the massive ability of MMO players to do hard labor. Think about all the information that could be parsed by NASA MMO players. Parts of the game should be looking at Hubble Images for specific items, or comparing red shifts. It has been fully shown that MMO players will "grind" up against a work load to get to the next whatever, so that should be something that NASA exploits.