Virtual reality

[aero]

Train yourself to deliberately blink your eyes when you turn your head. And other times as needed.

[grondilu]

I think we need to clarify a few things, here.  Most notably:  VR is not teleoperation.  Both concepts provide a similar experience to the user, but they are yet very different.

In VR, the events resulting from the user's commands are determined by a computer model.

In teleoperation, the events resulting from the user's commands are determined by the corresponding actions of the physical avatar in the environment.

As a consequence, excessive communication delays make teleoperation impossible or at least impractical.  But as I tried to explain earlier in this thread, this is not the case for VR.   VR *can* be used to explore an other planet, regardless of the communication delays, because the presence of robots on the surface is only needed to improve the computer model.

[grondilu]

Now that I think about it, the distinction I made above between VR and teleoperation brings up an interesting question:  is data acquisition necessarily part of exploration?

I mean, imagine we manage to communicate with an alien civilization and they give us a very accurate and complete model of the whole galaxy.  The exact position and chemical composition of any small rock on any planet or moon would be enclosed in this data.   That would represent a huge amount of data but at least conceptually it would not be impossible to store and process such a database.  Would that mean that humanity would be done with exploring the galaxy?  I don't think so.  It would just mean that the exploration of the galaxy by mankind would consist in exploring the "alien catalog", and this would probably most conveniently be done by using a VR environment based on this database.

Is that completely far fetched?   Well, think about what Gaia is and what it does.  It will generate petabytes of data, so much that once this database is available, more time will probably be consecrated to analyse it than it was needed to acquire it.   And lots of people (not scientists though, but does it really matter?) will "explore" the Gaia catalog with 3D astronomical software such as spaceengine, whose support of VR is currently being worked on:



So yeah, I think it's not absurd to think that VR is the future of space exploration, because data acquisition will not be done by human bodies.

[michaelwy]

When i think about virtual reality and space, the holodeck in star trek immediately springs to mind. Some will be achived by the combination of display technology and treadmills. However, i think the great leap comes with holograms. Hopefully, we will soon be able to create life size holograms of humans and endow these with artificial intelligence. Then you could have virtual concerts, virtual plays and holographic discussons with a computer on any given subject.

[Adaptation]

Vr headset, on a robot arm with a 3d treadmill, the future of emersion.

[grondilu]

This is something I often wondered.  How convincingly can you reproduce or at least simulate microgravity or any arbitrary acceleration field with a controlled trajectory in a constant gravitational field?

I guess it depends of the available space of your device.  After all, if you have an infinite space, you can reproduce microgravity with a free fall.   But in a bounded sphere of any given diameter, how well can it work?

[Adaptation]

This is something I often wondered.  How convincingly can you reproduce or at least simulate microgravity or any arbitrary acceleration field with a controlled trajectory in a constant gravitational field?

I guess it depends of the available space of your device.  After all, if you have an infinite space, you can reproduce microgravity with a free fall.   But in a bounded sphere of any given diameter, how well can it work?

If your small they can do it quite well.  Simply spin you across all three axis evenly, works almost perfectly for one point and pritty good for small things like eggs.  Bigger things like people sized things get too much of an effect from centripetal force.

You can also be placed in neutral buoyancy conditions but this wont fool your inner ear.  Not that that matters much, you trust your eyes more than your ears anyhow.

[Jim]

If your small they can do it quite well.  Simply spin you across all three axis evenly, works almost perfectly for one point and pritty good for small things like eggs. 

wrong.  Free fall is the only way.  Spinning would not do it. It is still in a one g field.  If spinning could do it then there would be a whole industry based on it and there would be no need to fly microgravity experiments.

[Adaptation]

wrong.  Free fall is the only way.  Spinning would not do it. It is still in a one g field.  If spinning could do it then there would be a whole industry based on it and there would be no need to fly microgravity experiments.

meow

There are like tons of these things and loads of papers studying how well they work. 
http://descsite.nl/Publications/Other/RPM-FS-MG-R00-017.pdf
Also a more common thing called rotating wall vesicle. 

They work, just not not perfectly and only for little things.  Stuff also has to either be physically attached or in a fluid, higher viscosity is better.   

[KelvinZero]

...the future of emersion.

Add elastic bands pulling the body down to simulate gravity, and that is just the sort of thing I imagine for making living in a tiny box in zero-g for six months bearable and healthy. I would probably prefer scenic walks over six months of zombie killing though.

How does that treadmill thing work in multiple directions? I thought maybe you could have ball bearings on the shoes with variable friction, but ideally the floor would actually keep moving in any direction. Tilting could also be useful to simulate mild inclines.