I’d venture a guess that very few of us fulfill our childhood professional aspirations. I am fairly certain that I—for one—will never be a princess, professionally or otherwise. I know my good friend didn’t become a veterinarian, and I certainly know that my younger brother hasn’t (and probably will never) drive a dump truck. On the other hand, I am very impressed by those who do make good on their childhood ‘callings’—especially if those callings could change the way we see the world.
Richard Garriott is one of those people whose desire to become a space explorer has changed the way we view our world—and beyond that—intergalactic travel. While perhaps easy to peg him initially as an “experience hunter”, Garriott’s 2008 voyage into space as the first American 2nd Generation Space Flight Participant has opened up possibilities for privatized space travel and consequently—greater understanding of our vast universe.
“Man on a Mission” is the documentary released this year that paints the portrait of the ineffably driven Garriott—a game development guru and son of Skylab astronaut and scientist Owen Garriott. While nearsightedness prevented Richard from ever pursuing his dream career as a NASA astronaut, his entrepreneurial successes allowed him to invest in early commercial space ‘tourism’, private space travel research and development, and then millions (and a rigorous year of training) to join the Russian team on Soyuz TMA-13 for a 10-day trip to the International Space Station in 2008. Coming full circle from near-sighted and Earth-bound, Richard’s Lasiked eyes and scientific proclivities served him well onboard the 2008 flight. He not only conducted a visual acuity experiment for NASA, but he replicated the 1973 photographic targets taken on his father’s mission to show natural and human influence over the course of one generation of space travel. Better yet, he used a beta version of Windows on Earth—a TERC-developed software tool now approved by the International Space Station as a standard tool for Earth observation and targeting. It’s always a special moment when we see TERC resources being used on film!
Image of Richard Garriott’s Windows on Earth interface courtesy of sensysmag.com
Windows on Earth (WinEarth) was originally developed by TERC with funding from the National Science Foundation ( grant #DRL-0515528) as an educational tool for use in museums, and it is currently installed at the National Air and Space Museum, Boston’s Museum of Science and several other museums. Members of the Association of Space Explorers recognized the potential of the simulation software to assist astronauts in scientific Earth photography on the ISS. With funding from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), TERC is currently enhancing the Windows on Earth software and adapting it for use by astronauts to replace the current multi-step process for targeting, photographing and geo-referencing images.
“If you asked any person who has returned from space what they enjoyed the most, the answer will come back, ‘looking out the window and looking at the earth’,” said Owen Garriott in the film. Thanks to the Garriotts’ missions and TERC’s development of the WinEarth software, perhaps our future will be rife with enhanced zero-gravity exploration and images of our planet captured for posterity by Windows on Earth.
If you were to ask me now, I’d tell you this: I’d like to be a space explorer and view our amazing planet from the sky when I grow up…
TERCTalks 