There is a great deal of interest from national space agencies to go to the Moon and Mars. ESA wants to go to the Moon and establish a village there. NASA wants to go to Mars. Astronauts and Cosmonauts from all over the world are already living aboard the ISS. What can they do in their free time? It can’t be all about reading books or game play on computers. Think of new sports or games that could take into account the low gravity (e.g. a space lacrosse game, extreme basketball). What about real or virtual experiences involving the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon? Or following the paths of Sojourner, Spirit or Curiosity on Mars using a form of cross-country skiing? Think of new ways for to astronauts to use their free time. To present your results develop an app that makes use of virtual reality tools.

Space colonization is the next big step humanity must and will face in the next decades. Leisure time will be a very important part, directly contributing to the success of these future mission. Finding ways to have fun and distract from the tedium of long duration missions far away from Earth may be in high demand. In developing this challenge think of space travellers far away from home benefitting from fully immersive virtual reality activities you create. Space explorers will be flying to and from Mars months at a time and as such, will require leisure time.. Games can be used to promote comradery and relieve stress. Games can even be used to support training or exercise requirements more effectively.

Athletic performance and injury prevention are a critical area of research both in space and on the ground. Astronaut performance becomes particularly important in long duration spaceflight, as they must maintain their muscle capacity, bone density, and cardiovascular health by exercising two hours a day. If a crew is going to safely travel to a destination like Mars and return healthy, they must train as a hard as a high performance athlete!

This challenge recommends the use of virtual reality tools. To implement their ideas challengers may use different game engines, and integrating images and data acquired from previous missions. Users could also create an app that would make the required exercise more engaging.

Consider games that can:

• only be done in microgravity
• existing games or activities that could be modified to be fun dynamic of being in microgravity

In developing indoor games, consider the space limitations due to the volume of the habitat (i.e. tight quarters)

• The astronauts will need to be able to play without damaging their habitat
• Variations could be games that could be played on the International Space Station
• Recommend that the games require little or no equipment , but instead use commonly available items, such as a clean pair of socks or a button. Current astronaut training or exercise requirements could be incorporated