AR, VR, MR, & MARS

In December 2017, a workshop sponsored by Explore Mars, Inc. was held in Washington, DC to discuss the technological needs of a future Mars mission and potential applications of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), hereafter referred to as Mixed Reality (MR). The interdisciplinary group included experts from the government, for profit, and non-profit sectors and spanned the domains of space mission architecture design, technologists, industry strategists, science management, and a retired astronaut.

The list of potential stakeholders at the intersection of space and MR is wide-ranging, and includes government and policy makers, future crew members, the aerospace industry, field science teams, organizations providing MR content, platform, and hardware, entertainment and gaming, robotics and habitat designers and developers, STEAM educators, and citizen scientists. This white paper summarizes discussions during the workshop, describing key areas in which MR technologies are currently used, and provides recommendations for next steps.