FOR SCIENCE...Virtual Reality -
NASA Explores Another New World

Imagine being on a space station. One of your astronauts needs his appendix taken out. But there’s no surgeon on board! Who’s going to perform the operation? How about someone on Earth?

A doctor on Earth slips on her virtual reality headset and gloves. Through the headset she finds herself inside a computer-generated version of the space station operating room. With gloves filled with fiber optic cables and sensors, she controls a robotic surgery tool on the space station. Her hands become the robot’s hands. “She” makes the incision and removes the inflamed appendix.

This type of technology is only a few decades away, thanks to NASA’s pioneering work in virtual reality (VR). VR combines three-dimensional graphics and sound to create highly realistic simulations of real environments. In the mid-1980’s, NASA’s Ames Research Center developed one of the first practical VR systems.

The system (shown above) consists of a head-mounted stereoscopic display that allows the user to “step into” a scene and interact with it. The display can be an artificial computer-generated environment or a real environment relayed from video cameras.

An example of how VR can be used: a design engineer can “get inside” a rocket engine and become part of the fuel flowing through the engine. The engineer can see how smooth the fuel flow is. An architect can walk through a building and see how it looks, before it is even built! Robots exploring another planet can be controlled from Earth as if a human were inside the robot, controlling its every move.

As a technology, VR is still in the early stages. But someday you may be able to walk around on Mars, while walking around on Earth. Or step into another time and march with Robert E. Lee or hobnob with dinosaurs!

NASA is experienced at exploring new worlds. Virtual reality is a whole new world, and NASA is there.