And what the HECK is this game about?

I would pronounce it like it looks. All short vowel sounds.

The game looks interesting. Here's a description:

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38343/ad-astra

...aaaand here's the official FFG page:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp

Ad (like a TV commercial)

Ass

Trah

It's Latin, by the way. It means "to the stars" (there's another thread down there that goes into more detail.)

In terms of what it's about, it's about 5 different subspecies of humanity who have evolved differently in various environments travelling out to the stars in search of resources and (presumably) financial gain. It plays a lot like Settlers of Catan in some ways, I would advise you to give it a spin. It's a nice, non-hostile space-themed board game.

its funny that you would ask people how to pronounce it in a written forum :b

Got a pretty decent rating on BGG, I may have to look into this one more...