The Apollo 11 Virtual Reality Experience places you in the position of the astronauts who were the first to set foot on the Moon. The user gets to experience—in first person—how it feels to sit in the cockpit of the Apollo rocket at launch. In addition, video and audio fragments provide more information and contribute to the educational aspect of the application. The program is still in the development phase and has just reached the necessary funding on Kickstarter. Nevertheless, a prototype demo is already made available and I found it a very positive and promising experience !
Learn through experience
The experience is created by VR Immersive Education, a company which creates educational virtual reality applications and aims to make people “learn through experience”. They are also the creators of Titans of Space, and are serious about bringing educational VR applications to a wide audience. The developers have already demoed the prototype Apollo 11 application in an Irish classroom.
At this moment the program is only a showcase, which should show the potential of a fully developed experience. The project is on Kickstarter and (at the time of writing) has reached its €30,000 initial goal as well as the first stretch goal.
The demo
The Apollo 11 demo first transports the user to a living room with sixties-style furniture, including a television and projector. Both display a video fragment of American president John F. Kennedy giving his persuasive speech on the need to go to the Moon. The audio is clear and intermittent video fragments support the speech (and make the experience more alive).
It is clear that this demo is made with an eye for detail and accurate modeling
What follows is an impressive view on the Moon and the landing module. The scale of the scene seems large and the sight of the Earth emerging from the Moon’s horizon is beautiful. As a result it puts the user straight into the action. I may be nit-picking, but the Moon’s surface could use some more detail in future builds.
Before the actual launch we get a tour around the rocket as it is standing on the launch platform. It is clear that this demo is made with an eye for detail and accurate modeling—as far as I can tell from some real-life pictures. The camera panning around the rocket and moving down shows all details of the equipment. I do think that the twisting camera movement (while slow) is slightly uncomfortable and may cause people to feel weird, especially those who are not accustomed to VR experiences.
In this regard, the next scene is better. A vertical elevator brings the user (and two additional astronauts) to the top of the rocket. Ready to be launched. All of these scenes are supported by audio fragments of interviews with the astronauts. These really convey the challenges of the Apollo mission and considerably add to the educations value of the project.
Takeoff
What comes next is probably the highlight of this demo: the actual take-off. Strapped in a cockpit chair the experience takes you through a short launch procedure, including the countdown sequence. The cockpit is well made and the details are quite nice (an improvement on the very first version of this demo). Again, some aspects could be improved, e.g. attitude changes of the rocket are not yet represented on the instruments.
While the (undoubtedly large) g-forces of the launch are missing, the demo does make up for that to a certain extent. The user’s view is vibrating at launch (this is not uncomfortable) and the Earth can be seen to move further away through the small cockpit windows. Roaring engines, cockpit communication and dramatic music make up the soundscape of this scene.
To the Moon
The demo ends with an engine cut-off, leaving the user in a silent environment. A floating pencil passes by, and to some degree it can make the user feel afloat as well. By that time the Moon gets into view in one of the cockpit windows. A clear target for the mission, and for the future builds of this VR experience as well.
Moving forward
Off course, the current demo is limited in both time and content. It is also clear that certain features need fine-tuning. Regardless, the preliminary built shows which direction the developers are heading, and it demonstrates the potential of recreating inspiring historical events.
I always thought that experiencing a rocket launch from a first person point-of-view would work great in VR. Hence, it is exciting to see that others—with arguably better developer skills—are realizing such an experience.
Definitely worth trying, and supporting!
On a side note, one thing which may enhance the experience would be to have a (real-life) chair in a “vertical” position, so the user would be in the same position as the astronauts, and feel the gravitational force pulling them down. I couldn’t manage to do this with the current set-up, because the Rift DK2 is always aware of which side is “up”. Maybe a simple button which rotates the scene 90 degrees would work. Just an idea…
Dionos VR 