Prof. Benjamin Britton has built a virtual reality model of the Moon landing, which users can view from the perspective of the astronauts, of President Nixon in the White House or in a New York City bar celebrating with others gathered to watch the event on television.
Because the simulation was built using multi-user virtual reality software, users will be able to see and interact with each other during the simulation.
The virtual landing is only part of Britton's overall virtual creation, called Moon, which also includes a Moon Museum created in a fictitious Moon base. In addition to exhibits on the Moon landing, the museum focuses on different aspects of the history of the space program. The Booster Park, for example, contains models of several launch rockets, including the Nippon H-1 satellite launch vehicle, the SS-6 launch vehicle, which put the first man in space during the Vostok 1 mission, and the American Saturn-V, which launched the Apollo 11 astronauts toward the Moon.
Britton worked with many other 3D artists, astronomers and scientists to build the simulation, and has had cooperation from NASA and the Smithsonian Institute. Later this year, he plans to release a DVD containing the Moon Museum, the landing simulation, a video archive of footage related to the Moon landing, and a 3D map of the Moon produced with data from the NASA Clementine mapping mission.
Members of the project team will be virtually gathering in the simulation and the museum tonight to celebrate the anniversary.
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