“I’m here to say ‘bravo’ to the video game industry. Create curiosity, interest and love towards space exploration […] Thank you for your dedication, technical prowess and passion for storytelling. Inspire more and more people to join us, in real life […] Gamers bring a precious wealth of knowledge and technologies to our daily work. It would be impossible for me to list all the ways the video game industry has touched and influenced space exploration. Thank you”.
Delivered last August at Gamescom in Cologne, this video message was sent by Samantha Cristoforettiat that moment in the middle of the Minerva mission, that is launched at 27 thousand kilometers per hour four hundred kilometers above the earth’s surface.
The Italian astronaut is significant, one of the most representative faces of theEuropean Space Agency (ESA), has decided to participate in the most important video game event in Europe: an extraordinary communicative showcase – and perfect for presenting the collaboration between ESA and the imminent Kerbal Space Program 2 – Gamescom remains one of the few events capable of attracting the attention of insiders, the media, but also simple video game lovers. It is a perfect convergence for those who, like ESA, increasingly draws on the video game using its expressive methods, skills and, why not, its immense popularity.
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ESA has established partnerships with European developers and continues to offer expertise and resources to benefit their businesses. It is no coincidence that the increasingly close links between video games and space activities constitute a new field of work and development for Lionel Ferra: Franco-German engineer trained in Darmstad (with two degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Automation), Ferra has been involved in astronaut training for years. At the Eac, the European Astronaut Centre, he founded the Extended Reality Lab, o Xr Labdedicated to technologies “much more than fun”. In other words, yours is the working group appointed to test and develop techniques and technologies in which science fiction and space activities collide. We asked him to tell us in detail why ESA is increasingly paying attention to gaming. And not just the space-themed one.
Ferra, what links the European Space Agency to the world of gaming?
“We are working a lot with the virtual reality is that increased, using both professional and commercial declinations. Limiting the answer to my lab activity, most of our applications, if not all of the fifteen projects we’ve done, are based on game engines like Unreal Engine e Unity. It is significant, as is the fact that ESA often employs gaming hardware, from graphics cards to computers and headsets.
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About Hmd, apart from the professional models, we use Meta Quest, Vive Pro and Vive Pro 2 every day; we have even more high-end technology, such as Varjo Xr-3 and in general we have different connections with the sector sector, profitable ties with Ubisoft, Epic Games and other companies. Last but not least, gaming also influences my way of recruiting staff: I always ask candidates what their experience is in the gaming field. I care if they developed a game, participated in a game jam, whether they are gamers and, if so, which title they prefer at the moment. Not that recruitment is the exclusive prerogative of gamers, mind you, but for me the interest in this area is significant” – last November, ESA also signed a multi-year contract with TechyonHR-Tech multinational specialized in the search and selection of senior professionals and managers in the IT field, ed.
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Was Samantha Cristoforetti’s participation in Gamescom in Cologne last August a confirmation of ESA’s interest in video games?
“We had and have the goal of making ESA more visible among gamers, an audience we haven’t frequented often in recent years. Together with channels like Tik Tok, events like Gamescom and other platforms will allow us to better communicate our activities and maybe even recruit girls and boys otherwise unreachable. As already mentioned, for us gaming is not just a communication tool: we also use game engines and hardware for improve astronaut training. We prepare them to fly to the International Space Station with some virtual reality programs. Today, for example, some robotics is explained through VR. From next year we will also start teaching anatomy in augmented reality using HoloLens2”.
So is gaming also an integral part in the development of new projects?
“In more than one, starting with the Gateway, the station that will be launched into cislunar orbit in a few years and will act as logistical support for activities on the surface. A collaboration, moreover, which sees a strong involvement the Italian industry: with the Thales Alenia Space technicians, in virtual reality we made some design reviews of the progress and studies of the module under construction. Having put on the visors, Luca Parmitano, Alexander Gerst and other astronauts were able to visit, together with the engineers from Turin, the designed environments and then analyze them: ‘this should go there, this is too small, this is too big’. We are now replicating what was done with the Gateway also for the lunar lander, given that although automatic it will have to interact with the crews, for example for loading operations. We are doing several design reviews and interactions using VR.”
Is virtual reality training effective?
“Yes, but not suitable for every need. Haptic perception, for example, is unsatisfactory: in our kitchens, we immediately perceive whether we are touching a plastic or wooden surface. In virtual environments we are far from this result. In reverse, there are conditions that cannot be replicated in real life, for example microgravity, which can be reproduced in Vr: we can simulate the absence of weight, reproduce an environment with one sixth of the earth’s gravity, such as the lunar one; we can simulate the sunlight on the face, its reflections, the dust. All things we already do and that they work very well. And with promising developments”.
For instance?
“We are developing simulations dedicated to extravehicular activities to visualize the environment, instruments and everything that fluctuates around an astronaut. The problem is that, to date, we don’t know how to reproduce the way the suit hinders movement. We tried using a exoskeletonbut with little success. For now we will continue to use the pool dives to set up those experiments where you need to handle something. Returning to the question, I would therefore answer yes, the training implemented by virtual reality works and, despite some shortcomings, it is promising. However, in robotic operations, we have already seen a reduction in training time. We hope to measure the same with respect to physical operations training as well.”
Have you noticed any specific predisposition of gamers to space activities?
“When you’re a player you don’t want a bass frame rate, correct? When I hire someone I expect them to take the same approach outside the game context: if they use one of our applications and the user experience it’s not good, we did something wrong. I ask you to transpose the gaming experience into a good user experience: you need to have an effective interface, a good gameplay. We have to ask ourselves how pleasant it is to stay in our digital environment. That’s the key to any game: if you don’t like it, you quit. In our case, if the wearer does not appreciate what he is doing, his attention decreases as well as the didactic effect. The method we are using to develop all fifteen projects is iterative: we try, we do beta tests and repeat, repeat until the product is ready and distribute it. We haven’t delivered much so far, but we hope to do more very soon.”
Do you think that virtual and augmented reality can offer psychological support to astronauts during an interplanetary journey, perhaps to Mars?
“I have mixed impressions about it, because I’ve been working with astronauts for almost twenty years and I understand that, at times, psychological support could be considered little or not at all helpful. More likely, during a Martian mission, astronauts would appreciate the ability to connect with loved ones in a more immersive way. I am thinking of an experience in the Metaverse, in which it is for example possible, with a viewer and from Mars, to share a sofa with one’s children who have remained at home, with parents or with a friend for a chat. In this case, little to do with video games; I imagine immersive three-dimensional and stereoscopic videos, at 360 degrees, which allow virtual meetings. Or that they replace, in this sense by offering an important psychological support, natural environments, such as woods, meadows, gardens. The lack of contact with nature, in long space travel, will be a theme”.
Will you be able to walk through a forest while floating inside a spaceship bound for Mars?
“Of course and without too much difficulty. It will also be possible to combine operational needs and different environments: a training session could be planned by immersing it in a stage of the Giro d’Italia, or in a specific mountain route. In summary, we will have a better way to connect immersively with anyone and even some natural element when exercising. I’m not sure there are other psychological support projects, but I think these are two excellent examples to best preserve the well-being of astronauts”.
Why are you interested in video games?
“I’m not an avid gamer and I only play when my schedule allows me to. The power of gaming but I’m very interested in it, as is the opportunity to use it in our sector. In 2017, when we started testing with a Vive, a student decided to command a robotic arm through the viewer: well, imagine the arm in the room. Replace the room with the Moon. This is how we started, experimenting; today we grow at the speed of light. One of the most important facts is that it is who we are getting in touch with new people and skills. How many interested in space will really have the opportunity to fly to the ISS or walk on the moon? Today videogame technology makes it possible to satisfy these ambitions, at least virtually, and, at the same time, gives us the opportunity to connect with the new generations”.
Do you also use widespread and accessible software and applications for this? “Exactly. Unreal Engine, for example, is easy to use. Some time ago I called a colleague near the boarding house to ask him to take a look at the software. Today using it is his main task”.
What are the three best space video games ever?
“I played a lot Doom 1, 2 e 3. I even bought a computer to run the third one on. Can I consider it a space game?”
More science fiction than space in the strict sense…
“So I take advantage of it: the last game I liked was Half-Life: Alyx, incredibly good in virtual reality. Were I to go back to space, I would mention though Tetris, of which I have been a champion for years. True, it has nothing to do with space: but I played with it for hours, at night, in the long waits before the Space Shuttle took off”.