NASA sparks the imagination with Virtual Reality.
Like Willie Wonka being invited to the Chocolate Factory, I received an email from the social media team at NASA informing me that I was selected to join a group of social media enthusiasts who had applied to spend a day learning about “Space Lasers” at the restricted Goddard Flight Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, “home to the nation’s largest organization of scientists, engineers and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe.” I came back with a few stories to share.
Imagine being able to be with the ground crew at a NASA rocket launch.Watching as the mammoth rocket is rolled to its launch pad. Even standing underneath the gigantic rocket as it rolls past you overhead. Then standing at a dizzying height on the scaffolding next to the rocket in pre-launch testing. Even being very close to the rocket when it is launched — close enough that you wonder and look around to see if you’re not too close — only to discover that you’re the only one left so close to the rocket at launch. You get covered in the smoke of the fumes as it launches and then look to the sky as it disappears out of sight.
With a virtual reality headset and Virtual Reality (VR) content provided by NASA, anyone can get a stunning, real-life, immersive experience of being part of a NASA crew in the thick of it all.
Virtual Reality immerses the wearer of a VR headset into the moment of an event. If you look up, you see ceiling or sky. When you look around, you see in every direction as if you are in the midst of an event as it happens. People and things in motion.
VR creates so real a sensation of being in the moment that instincts will make it hard for a wearer of a VR headset to go too close to the edge of rocket scaffolding shown to the wearer, because the body and mind both warn that the experience and danger could be real — even though we know that it is not.
NASA knows that the newest generation of young people has been exposed to the most intensive visual multi-media experiences — and that Virtual Reality holds great promise of holding everyone’s imagination. I got to try just one of NASA’s VR clips during my day at NASA Goddard as a “NASA Social” social media ambassador. My VR experience brought me up close — real close — to a rocket launch. It grabbed my attention from the start, held it throughout — and left me admiring the work of NASA even more. Everyone who tried the experience agreed.
NASA brings out the kid in us. We’ve all dreamed of being an astronaut. How could we not? We all have an instinct to explore and being an astronaut is the height of exploration. A VR content library will help NASA continue to inspire new generations of scientists and explorers, especially as the newest generation has grown up playing VR games. It’s good to see NASA evolving in its content creation into the realm of VR.
NASA is also using 360 filming techniques to capture the imagination.
Checkout NASA VR content here! If you don’t own a VR headset, you might want to see if your public library will loan you one. (Also, many functional cardboard headsets can now be found online for about $8.)
Interested in more information from NASA?There’s an app for that!
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Source: Glen Gilmore / Medium