Whatever Happened to Virtual Reality?

Virtual Reality is making a comeback! Twenty years after the first wave of hype, virtual reality is making a comeback in NASA laboratories.

In the Matrix sequels, the metal gates to the city of Zion are operated by air traffic controllers who work inside a virtual control tower: a computer-generated, heavenly-white space where controllers use fancy virtual control panels to guide sci-fi hovercraft.

This fantasy scenario must seem familiar to anyone who rode the wave of Virtual Reality hype during the 1980s. Helmet-mounted displays, power gloves, 3D sights and sounds: these technologies were supposed to make immersive environments commonplace, revolutionizing everything from video games to stock market analysis to psychotherapy.

It didn't happen.

"The technology of the 1980s was not mature enough," explains Stephen Ellis, who leads the Advanced Displays and Spatial Perception Laboratory at NASA's Ames Research Center. Virtual Reality helmets and their optics were too heavy. Computers were too slow. Touch-feedback systems often didn't work. The only thing consistently real about Virtual Reality were headaches and motion sickness - common side effects of '80s-era helmets.

At NASA/Ames, Dr. Stephen Ellis models a virtual reality helmet.

Twenty years later, things have improved. Computers are thousands of times faster; Virtual Realioty peripherals are lighter-weight and they deliver a greater sense of feedback and immersion. And, importantly, researchers are beginning to understand crucial human factors, and are eliminating nausea and fatigue from the virtual reality experience.

Once again, virtual reality seems promising, and NASA is interested.

Picture this: an astronaut on Mars sends a rover out to investigate a risky-looking crater. Slip-sliding down the crater wall, the rover sends signals back to the Mars Base where the astronaut, wearing virtual reality goggles and gloves, feels like she herself is on the slope. Is the find important enough to risk venturing out in person? virtual reality helps decide.

In another scenario, astronauts could use virtual reality to perform repairs on the outside of their spacecraft by controlling a human-like robot, such as the Robonaut being developed at Johnson Space Center (JSC).