Moon game good enough for NASA

[FLO]

Bored with driving round the same old video games? How about zipping around the moon instead?

A virtual reality simulator that offers players a buzz past the Apollo 11 lander or the Tycho crater is to be launched next month. The educational game, Lunar Racing Championship, contains a three-dimensional map created using data from NASA's 1998 Clementine mission. Goggles give the user stereo vision, and the player's movement is tracked using motion sensors.

The game is so realistic, says Dan Rasky of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, that its engineers will use it to plan missions and solve design problems. Thrusters added to give virtual buggies traction at high speeds could find their way onto real buggies, he says.

Source: New Scientist

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