July 10, 2009
The Moon in Second Life
image from Daden Limited
How many times have you read about or seen the grainy videos of Apollo 11 and wondered what it was really like to be there. Now you - or your avatar - can be on the Moon and retrace the movements of Armstrong and Aldrin as they set up instruments, collected samples and bounced across the surface. A UK firm, Daden Limited, has created the Tranquility Base as a simulation in the immersive virtual world Second Life. The terrain is based upon actual images of the Apollo 11 area with craters and rocks in their correct relative locations. Unfortunately, to explore Tranquility Base you have to have an account with SL (free), buy the spacesuit and learn to walk around in SL. The image above comes from a YouTube video that gives a preview of the virtual world. I hope that you will explore this sim so that you will know how to work in SL by September when the MoonWorld sim my university is developing will be available.
Chuck Wood