"Wild Ride" Lunar Colony opening sequence for the NASA Immersive Earth Project
The "Earth's Wild Ride" planetarium show is the first of several fulldome presentations being created for the NASA Immersive Earth Project. The show will premiere at the Houston Burke Baker Planetarium and then be distributed to planetariums worldwide. The 3 minute sequence takes full advantage of the new hi-definition fulldome projection systems that fill the entire dome view with the scene... along with a 6.1 surround sound setup, the audience is treated to an immersive experience that places the viewer in a front row seat of the action.
September 3, 2081... From the Lunar Colony at the Moon's South pole, a grandfather, who has just joined his family living on the Moon, takes his granddaughter and grandson out onto the surface to watch the "solar" eclipse. As the shadow moves across the Earth's face, he tells the children, who have never been to Earth, stories of ice, water, asteroid strikes and volcanos past and present... all things they have never experienced on their airless world. These are images from the opening sequence...
Our story begins as the daily Lunar shuttle is approaching the Lunar Colony located at the Moon's south pole. The shuttle is a standard utility power module with a passenger unit attached to the bottom for this trip. The power modules are adapted for various lunar needs by adding the appropriate module or alone as lifting cranes for construction work at the colony. We are approaching the Moon just prior to the total solar eclipse, so the moon is bathed in blue Earth shine. As we descend, our landing rockets are extended out from the power module to facilitate control in the Moon's airless environment.
As we vector over the surface we pass by the towering solar collectors and head towards the landing pad just beyong the colony dome. The colony is encased under a sectioned igloo-like dome of frozen ice-water for protection from the Sun's radiation... with shading panels that can rotate to follow the sun's journey around the polar location. Out on the surface the grandfather and the children have set up a digital telescope to view the Moon's shadow as it passes across the full Earth hanging low in the star-filled sky.
The set up ties together all the stories the grandfather presents... you can view case histories of the sub stories created for the program by clicking on various other links in the left column... stories of ice age mammoths and cave paintings, asteroids and dinosaurs, thunderstorms and volcanoes.
The NASA Immersive Earth Project is a five year funded program to create educational immersive planetarium shows that deal with Earth Science... Rice University's Space Institute and the Houston Museum of Natural Science are the key coordinators.
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© 2005 H o m e R u n P i c t u r e s