NEVIs

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.

Our solution contains two galleries which makes it possible for the astronaut to choose between an virtual environment created in Blender then exported to Unity (which was used to create the application used in the VR glasses) and a real camera feed taken from a 360 camera possibly from extreme sports bikers.

When a user chooses the virtual environment he will have to make the bike in the APP move by pedaling the gym bike in the ISS, a reflective IR sensor captures a full rotation of the wheel and sends a ping request using a Bluetooth module which then will be used by the APP to move the bike in the virtual environment, the user will also have the opportunity to move his body to adjust his angle when he decides to turn left or right in a curve.

On the other side, when the user(in this case the astronaut) chooses real feed from a bike in earth which has an Arduino board with a gyroscope and an accelerometer sensor connected to it, those two sensors collect data from the bike’s movement and then send them to the hydraulic system of the bike in the ISS which then will replicate the movements of the real bike to make it feel like riding a bike for real.

In general our goal is to create an interactive connection between Space and Earth. This could solve the problem that astronauts have by giving them a choice on how to pass their free time and reduce their stress and homesickness.

Why not to bring Earth to Space?

Space sweet home.

PS : We also hope to develop this project by adding it some other components which would make it possible to offer more opportunities for the astronauts to pass their free time.

• Arduino Uno
• Bluetooth module
• LED
• VR Box
• Unity
• Blender
• Resistors
• Infra red reflective sensor
• Bicycle
• Hydraulic lifting system(similar to the one car simulators use)