Our department recently had the luxury of touring NASA Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL).
They showed us several state-of-the-art applications and stunning imagery.
The highlight of the tour was new timelapse 3D stereo footage of the sun. Forget anything in visual effects the past 20 years, the footage was stunning. Solar flares, broiling surface, and the fact it was stereo made it even more immersive. If you weren't sold on stereo being a viable viewing method, you would be now. At least for documentary style footage or events. The footage was captured with new high end filters on large telescopes. When the scientists got the footage back they stared at it for 3 hours. We wish we had the much time in the tour to do the same. The footage should be available on Blu-Ray and/or HDVD at some point.
We also saw an incredible amount of imagery of our solar system. Most notably the crater on Mars the rover is exploring. The big canyon the size of the United States, the dark side of the moon, and other planets / moons.
Especially amazing was a small room with a 4K projector taking up the entire wall. They showed us new software, that is self explanatory to navigate our solar system, using all the latest high resolution images from a variety of missions.
Sadly, the budget of NASA is roughly equilavent to 3 days in IRAQ.
NASA has a presence in SecondLife. Take your avatar their and check it out. It looks more like a trade show booth, than a destination, but may be interesting to kids wanting to learn a thing or two about NASA.
-Louis Katz
www.louiskatz.com
Sunday, November 25, 2007
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