Advanced Visualisation at Heart of new Exhibit
at National Space Centre

An advanced visualisation system designed and supplied by Virtalis lies at the heart of the Human Spaceflight: Lunar Base 2025 Gallery at National Space Centre in Leicester.

Drawing on the latest thinking from the European Space Agency and NASA, the team behind the project have promulgated what could be achieved in terms of space exploration with the technology that should be available twenty years hence.

Prof. Alan Wells of The University of Leicester, part of the team behind Human Spaceflight: Lunar Base 2025, explained: “We have compressed a year long training mission, including a simulated flight to Jupiter’s Moon Europa, to allow visitors to the Space Centre to anticipate the experiences of the next generation of space explorers.”

Upon entering the gallery, visitors will receive their boarding passes and briefing for a realistic astronaut training mission. Once the “crew” are seated in the Gallery’s theatre, the craft leaves the Moon’s surface at five times the speed of sound. The high definition, uncompressed 3D movie, played back by Virtalis’ StereoServer software through a StereoWorks passive projection system, is perfectly in synch with a hydraulic platform that realistically produces the gravity forces experienced by the crew.

The explorers are then fast-forwarded to the closing stages of their mission, where the craft, which is cruising at 100,000 kilometres per hour, uses Newton’s Laws and the atmosphere of Jupiter to slow down. It then heads to Europa using the last of its fuel to slow as it does so. As Europa has no atmosphere, a thrilling ride ensues, as it crashes through ice canyons on the way to the base below the ice.

Owing to the radiation levels, the crew are aware that they only have three minutes to land before the radiation dose becomes too dangerous. This deadline is only just met and the doors of the base slam behind the craft, ending the spaceflight experience.

Andy Gregory, Creative Services Manager for the Production Department at The National Space Centre, commented, “Our facility involves both physical movement and stereoscopic images, to create a believable future simulation technology. There are very few theatres offering this level of realism anywhere in the world.

We turned to Virtalis to help us design the installation because their experience is unparalleled and we knew they could supply a turnkey system using their StereoWorks package. Our show concept took us four months to develop, but we now have the building blocks in place for us to begin work on another one. We want to capture people’s imagination by presenting science and education in an exciting and memorable way.”

National Space Centre Web Site: www.spacecentre.co.uk