MEGA PROJECTS

 01

Mega ‘GTA 6’ Leak Floods the Internet With Gameplay Footage and Screenshots

In what could be one of the biggest gaming bombshells of all time, Rockstar Games’ upcoming GTA 6 has suffered a major leak, revealing footage of an early build of the release and loads of unfinished gameplay. While this new leak seems to confirm certain previously rumoured elements, it also does dampen all the surprises the developers had in store for players. Grand Theft Auto 6 is among the most hyped and talked about video games on the planet, with speculation over the plot, characters and release date brewing long before its existence was even confirmed.

RELATED: Grand Theft Auto VI’ Confirmed by Rockstar Games

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Image: Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games has been extremely secretive about the whole project and until recently there was almost nothing we knew or had seen of the game, but that has now completely changed, all thanks to more than 90 videos and screenshots that surfaced on GTA Forums. Recently, a user going by the name of ‘teapotuberhacker’ uploaded an overwhelming amount of GTA 6 footage to the forum, which they argued was from a test build of Grand Theft Auto 6, running with “GTA 5 and 6 source code and assets”.

The leaked screenshots and video footage have already taken over YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media forums, and align with some previous information from past GTA 6 leaks, such as the game having multiple playable characters, including a female protagonist, and the location which seems to be a Miami-like Vice City. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier substantiated the authenticity of the leaked clips and photos, saying, “Not that there was much doubt, but I’ve confirmed with Rockstar sources that this weekend’s massive Grand Theft Auto VI leak is indeed real. The footage is early and unfinished, of course. This is one of the biggest leaks in video game history and a nightmare for Rockstar Games”.

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Image: Rockstar Games

Despite several sources claiming the videos were real, the internet was divided on the authenticity of the clips. However, just days later, the actual confirmation came with Rockstar Games officially taking to Twitter to share its disappointment in the reveal.

“We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto,” Rockstar Games confirmed on Twitter. “At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services not any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects.”

“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations, We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready. We want to thank everyone for their ongoing support through this situation.”

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Image: Rockstar Games

In one of the leaked videos, we can see a playable female character named Lucia looting a restaurant and taking NPCs as captives. Since the footage is from an early build of the game, you can see an abundance of placeholder texts such as ‘Time Until Cops Dispatched’, and dialogue texts like “Jason: GENERIC_CURSE_TO_SELF.” In yet another video, we see a playable character on the “Vice City Metro” train, which appears to verify the information that the game will take place in a fictionalised rendition of Miami. There’s another clip showing a poolside conversation where we hear dialogue like, “Oh yeah, he’s dead, is he? Just like there’s a country called Finland.” Other clips also reveal gunplay along with fleeing from Vice City police.

Take-Two Interactive already has begun filing takedown requests for a lot of GTA 6 videos uploaded on YouTube, with many videos now reading, “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Take-Two Interactive.” However, there are still a few that remain online.

All the leaked videos and images are clearly from an alpha build of the game and it seems like an unfinished development build used for testing some facets of the game by the devs. While we don’t have any idea or confirmation as to how old this footage is or how far along Rockstar is in development, GTA 6 is still a way off and probably won’t be out before late 2024 or early 2025. However, these newly leaked videos and screenshots do confirm a wide array of information surrounding the game’s location and characters.

Did you love this story on Grand Theft VI? Check out some of our other recent GTA 6 coverage:

02

The Artemis 1 mission is an American mega-project

The 100 meter-tall rocket on the launch pad for Artemis 1 is among the largest ever built, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg—the eye-catching evidence of much broader activity below the surface.

After missing the first launch window due to a problem with an engine temperature sensor, NASA is aiming to try again at 2:17pm Eastern time on Sept. 3. You can watch along with NASA’s live video feed.

This uncrewed test mission is designed to prove that the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule can safely carry future astronauts to the Moon. The ultimate goal is to put the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface under the American flag, but the Artemis program, like the Apollo missions that came before, is so much more.

Scott Pace, the Trump administration’s former space policy point man, said that rockets like this one are “strategic national assets,” like nuclear aircraft carriers, or the transcontinental railroad. If it’s true of any rocket, it’s certainly true of the Artemis 1 vehicles: Their sheer size and complexity dwarf many other undertakings of the US government.

What it takes to send Artemis 1 to the Moon

The challenge at hand is accelerating a capsule that can survive far beyond earth’s atmosphere to the enormous speeds needed to get there, requiring some 8.8 million pounds of force. A few figures on what it takes to do that: $93 billion has been spent on the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion space capsule. (For a comparison, the cost of the entire Apollo program, including six crewed landings on the Moon, is roughly $270 billion in present-day dollars.) It takes just over $4 billion to put together the hardware and operations for a single launch of the paired vehicles. And each launch will burn through nearly 144 tons of liquid hydrogen and 844 tons of liquid oxygen in just eight minutes.

Like any good boondoggle, the SLS and Orion (built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, respectively) survived in large part on the basis of the jobs and investment they brought to key Congressional districts. That factor supported a political coalition of scientists interested in lunar research, China hawks eager to match and exceed a geopolitical rival, and entrepreneurs who believe in a future lunar economy.

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Still, their ultimate purpose wavered: First the vehicles were part of the Constellation program to return to the Moon, then briefly assigned to visit an asteroid under the Obama administration, before becoming the vehicle of choice for Artemis, now the third and strongest attempt at sending people back to Earth’s nearest natural satellite.

During the decade-plus that the rocket has been in development, however, the aerospace industry has changed dramatically. Investments by venture capital-backed entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley have led to cheaper, more effective rockets. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, first flown in 2018, has about 60% of the SLS’ payload capacity—for about 4% of the cost. If SpaceX can successfully fly its next vehicle, Starship, to orbit, the SLS may be rendered immediately obsolete.

But it’s worth thinking about what infrastructure like the SLS does in the bigger picture. If Starship does fly, it will be in part because the SLS program gave NASA a freer hand to gamble on its original partnership with SpaceX, which led directly to that company’s success.

The economic implications of the Artemis Moon project

Lightning strikes a tower near the Artemis 1 launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Behind the big rocket, there are hundreds of companies, and not just the contractors and subcontractors who actually built the thing.

A timely paper from economists Alex Whalley and Shawn Kantor used new methodology to measure gains from public spending during the Apollo program. They found a return on investment of greater than 20%, thanks to accelerated innovation in technologies from silicon chips to robotics, and the long-term gains in local areas where NASA set up research and manufacturing centers. While the Artemis program is unlikely to have an impact as large, in part because of its reliance on proven technology, its benefits will be more diffuse than just the gains from exploration.

Moreover, the investment in SLS has given momentum to private activity. The expense and challenge of deep space exploration has created openings for private companies to take on the comparatively safer environment in low-earth orbit. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised to build and service private space stations as the International Space Station approaches retirement at the end of the decade.

And like the ISS, which has become a locus for economic development, Artemis has led to contracts for privately-built robots to explore the Moon in advance of human landings and for rocket companies to deliver supplies there. NASA even decided to help fund SpaceX’s Starship to act as a landing vehicle for the next set of moonwalkers.

The politics of Artemis

The Apollo program was driven largely by the American belief in achieving symbolic technological victories during the Cold War. That impulse has lessened, but hasn’t ceased: A group of US military advisers recently warned in a report on the aerospace industrial base (pdf) that China could outpace the US in a matter of decades. You could read that as companies marketing their wares with politics, but there’s no doubting the seriousness of China’s intent to establish itself as a space power.

Artemis will be an answer to that question, but more as a downpayment on US credibility. The US is attempting to influence new norms for space activity by gathering countries around the Artemis Accords, which would facilitate peaceful scientific exploration and private business in orbit. The US is signing up allies to its plan on the strength of its commitment to going to the Moon. The European Space Agency has played a key role in building the Orion spacecraft, making this a more international mission than Apollo or other past deep space exploration.

Alongside efforts to push for common rules of the road for satellites in Earth’s orbit, and measures like the moratorium on destructive satellite weapons testing, Artemis is a concrete way for the US to outline a vision for humanity in space.

The science of Artemis

The Orion space capsule on top of the Space Launch System rocket.

While the focus for this mission is on the performance of the vehicles to prepare for future crewed missions, the ability to reach the Moon with four astronauts and significant cargo will create opportunities to learn more about the Moon, the Earth, and the solar system at large.

During the Apollo missions, astronauts landed in brightly lit areas near the Moon’s equator. This time around, the goal is to put astronauts close to the lunar poles, where remote-sensing spacecraft have detected decisive evidence of the presence of water ice. Learning more about this ice and its source will help researchers better understand the history of our neighborhood in space. The ability to extract this ice and use it—to make water, oxygen, and rocket propellant—could make long-duration stays on the Moon feasible, and enable potential missions to Mars.

The biggest difference between Apollo and Artemis is the buzzword “sustainability”—this program’s architects want it to be built to survive political storms and allow for consistent research time spent on the Moon. Ideas about radio telescopes on the far side, geology labs deep in craters, and infrastructure like lunar wifi and GPS could enable space science unlike anything we’ve seen before—outside of science fiction. After the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers buzzed not just about what they expected to see but about all the new questions that would be raised by this new tool. The same will be said about a new level of dedication to lunar science.

If, that is, we can get there. That starts Saturday morning, with the shakedown cruise of the latest (and maybe last) US government mega-project in space. The countdown has begun...

03

Mega solar or small

The central focus of the National Solar Energy Initiative appears to be the early start of mega projects

The writer is a senior political economist based in Islamabad. He can be reached at [email protected]

Among the earliest policy intents expressed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, solarisation had a special place. It all started with a meeting with the Chinese who were invited to invest in solar projects. There was also the review of the renewable projects cleared during the PML-N period but not implemented by the PTI government. Initially, the news came out that the new policy would target an addition of 14,000 MW of solar power. The new national solar policy was to be announced on August 1. A realistic assessment by the taskforce set up for the purpose seems to have scaled down the target, with the Prime Minister tweeting on September 1 that a pre-bid conference of stakeholders would be held this week to deliberate on the generation of 10,000 MW.

While there are plans to solarise diesel based tube wells and government buildings, the central focus of the National Solar Energy Initiative appears to be the early start of mega projects. There are several unresolved issues here. First, the objective is to replace the costly imports of fossil fuels with cheaper solar power. This will add to capacity which, according to some, is already in excess and there are huge costs for not utilising it. Secondly, the output of the new solar projects is expected to use the existing transmission system that is known for its high level of wastage. Thirdly, due to our well-known inability to negotiate foreign deals in our interest and the weaknesses of the legal system, the private investment in solar power poses dangers similar to the IPPs. Finally, the critical macroeconomic situation dictates against the PSDP funding.

Governments in Pakistan, especially of PML-N, prefer mega projects for their visibility. The future is solar, but rushing into mega projects may create more problems than it will solve. There is, however, every reason to rush into demand creation rather than adding to supply. With less than respectable access to electricity, going small will add more value. Solarising tube wells and agricultural implements is already there in the new policy. Off-grid rural households and public services in rural areas offer great potential. All new house construction and commercial places in urban areas should be mandated to solarise. As the initial cost of solarisation is lumpy, the need is to work out an incentives framework. At present, most solar equipment is imported. The little that is produced domestically is of poor quality. Even the imports, largely from China, are not of great quality.

For years, this writer has advocated the establishment of an R&D facility, with the objective to create and design high quality solar equipment locally. As there is no better use of public investment than innovation and replication, the facility should have no funding constraint. It should be modelled after the Kahuta project, with the same professional zeal to succeed, come what may. Perhaps the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the other nuclear labs can put together a team motivated to launch Pakistan brand in the highly competitive world market. The prototypes produced by the facility should be offered to the private sector to scale up. In the meantime, the demand creation has to be encouraged by a liberal regime for imports and local taxes, besides concessional credit. The present energy mix shows only one per cent contribution from the solar generation. As solar supply is not continuous, other sources cannot be completely eliminated. It can, however, be the predominant source and a great leap forward to ensuring affordable, cleaner and sustainable supply. Let the sun shine on the economy.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2022.

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