If you had a scheduling conflict that meant you couldn’t ride on Jeff Bezos’ penis rocket, fear not. The space tourism industry is currently taking off, with recent examples being Virgin Galactic’s $450k-per-seat option, and Space Perspective’s $125k offering (which includes company away days and weddings). If you don’t have that sort of money to burn, though, there’s a new and completely free way to explore space.
An upcoming series from TIME called Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, is giving us normies a close-up of what it’s like to visit the International Space Station.
The project, which is in collaboration with NASA, is an immersive VR production using custom-built cameras designed to operate in zero-gravity. With over 200 hours of filmed footage from the astronauts capturing their lives in space, the series gives audiences an inside look into a faraway perspective of Earth.
The series will feature real-life astronauts including David Saint-Jacques, Anne McClain, Nick Hague, Christina H. Koch, Jessica U. Meir, Luca Parmitano, Hazza Al Mansouri, and Andrew “Drew” Morgan, who are all currently stationed on the ISS, giving an insight into their daily lives.
The third and fourth episode of Space Explorers takes viewers on an immersive experience on what it’s like to float around in space. The episodes are set to drop later this year and will be available as a fully immersive VR experience on the Oculus Store to use on headsets and mobiles, and will be screened in select domes and planetariums.
Elsewhere in recent space news, astronomers discovered a new class of water-covered exoplanets that could be hosting life, scientists found that Saturn has a ‘fuzzy’, jiggly core, NASA is testing a 3D moon dust printer that could build roads and homes on the Moon, and – good news! – Asteroid Bennu is more likely to crash into Earth than previously thought.
Watch the trailer for Space Explorers: The ISS Experience: