NASA offers public chance to experience next manned mission virtually
NASA is now offering the general public the opportunity to virtually experience the next manned Dragon flight to ISS, set to launch on November 14th.
“Members of the public can attend the launch virtually, receiving mission updates and opportunities normally reserved for on-site guests,” NASA officials wrote in a statement on Tuesday (Nov. 3). “NASA’s virtual launch experience for Crew-1 includes curated launch resources, a digital boarding pass, notifications about NASA social interactions and the opportunity for a virtual launch passport stamp following a successful launch,” the agency added.
While much of this will be fun to do, much of it is also pure hype, designed to sell NASA to the public, even though the mission is being launched and run almost entirely by the private commercial company SpaceX, not NASA.
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NASA is now offering the general public the opportunity to virtually experience the next manned Dragon flight to ISS, set to launch on November 14th.
“Members of the public can attend the launch virtually, receiving mission updates and opportunities normally reserved for on-site guests,” NASA officials wrote in a statement on Tuesday (Nov. 3). “NASA’s virtual launch experience for Crew-1 includes curated launch resources, a digital boarding pass, notifications about NASA social interactions and the opportunity for a virtual launch passport stamp following a successful launch,” the agency added.
While much of this will be fun to do, much of it is also pure hype, designed to sell NASA to the public, even though the mission is being launched and run almost entirely by the private commercial company SpaceX, not NASA.
Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar below. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Regular readers can support Behind The Black with a contribution via Patreon or PayPal. To use Patreon, go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. For PayPal click one of the following buttons:
If Patreon or Paypal don't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
Seems like a good sign to me. I’d love to see a bunch of companies hype their launch experiences, while all using SpaceX (and hopefully sometime soon some competitors) rockets. I think it would mean that space travel is getting closer to what airline travel is now.
I hope NASA doesn’t forget the virtual “Tang” OJ for everybody!
These interesting times are where “virtual” is a mere change of medium used for the same purposes that media from drums to print to broadcast to social, have done since men first began communicating to large groups of other men.
This new digitally grounded virtual life however adds a Dzahnibekov dynamic to how media affects its consumers’ s societies and worth. One “virtually” explores risk-free by way of GPS and aps, where once an individual risked much and used maps, compasses, and brainpower. One “virtually” tunes an instrument via eyesight on a digital tuner, a virtual replacement for the human ear which served to tune all instruments for all centuries prior.
What appears as an advance is actually a regression with “virtual,” I suspect.
For those interested in watching something else than SpaceX or NASA, here’s a three-year old recording from inside Blue Origin’s capsule.
Mannequin Skywalker’s ride to space onboard Crew Capsule 2.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZJghIk7_VA
A CLPS mission should place a pole with a 360° camera on top and the power & broadcasting equipment very close to the landing zone of the first crew landing sites. In this way, people on Earth could be virtually present when the historic lunar return missions take place.