NASA's Latest Virtual Reality Is Designed to Soothe Homesick Astronauts

Astronauts have used virtual reality as a training tool for some time now, but future astronauts on long-duration spaceflights could well find VR to be just as indispensable a tool once in actual space.

For more than a decade, researchers at Dartmouth, Harvard, and other institutions have been working on an initiative known as the Virtual Space Station, which aims to provide a means of averting interpersonal conflicts and treating astronauts' mental health issues conflicts when they're far from Earth.

Now, Dartmouth's Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation lab (otherwise known as DALI) has received a $1.6 million grant from NASA to further build out the VR component of the program and effectively let astronauts take a bit of home with them on that next trip to Mars.

DALI is going to use that funding to develop more elaborate VR programs that can "trick the brain and make people feel as if they are in a variety of beautiful and calm settings, such as with their family at home or strolling on the beach," Lorie Loeb, DALI's lab director, explained in a news release. That, she says, could even be topped off with scents of saltwater and suntan lotion, and a fan to simulate an ocean breeze, creating a fully immersive experience. The ultimate goal is to "help make people feel at ease, at home, happy, comfortable, and calm."

Not surprisingly, the researchers have turned to the Oculus Rift for their current tests. In an email to Motherboard, Loeb noted that OR has been a particularly welcome development in the 10-plus years of the program—not only reducing cost, but making it easier to develop content and provide a more realistic environment than earlier VR setups.

That's echoed by former astronaut Dr. Jay Buckey, who's one of the creators of the Virtual Space Station program and actually used an earlier VR device on his Space Shuttle mission in 1998 (which focused on the effects of space on the nervous system), although he said that "back then the sense of immersion was weak." In comparison, he told us that "the Rift has really advanced the sense of immersion and presence compared to earlier VR systems."

It's that "sense of presence and immediacy you get from the new generation of VR," he said, that he hopes will make it useful for a variety of behavioral health applications, like relaxation and stress relief.

Loeb further added that she can "imagine an astronaut spending a fair bit of time with virtual reality and augmented reality headset." It could easily be incorporated into their suits, she said, and "would be a good way to provide distractions, stress reduction, and training."

Before it gets put to use in space, though, the researchers will be conducting some extensive tests here on Earth, and they're taking advantage of a different type of simulation to fine tune it.

While the Rift-based system wasn't ready to be shipped off to them, Dartmouth has recruited a six-person team that just this week began an eight-month Mars simulation mission in Hawaii to further test the current Virtual Space Station program and help "upgrade the existing content." The researchers then plan to follow it up with a similar test in Antarctica.

As with many NASA-funded projects, though, the researchers aren't focused solely on space travel. They say the programs could well be adapted to help treat people here on Earth, who can just as easily find themselves in a remote location that leaves them feeling isolated, be it simply a rural area or somewhere like an oil rig or underwater research station.