Ames center director Simon “Pete” Worden is publicly promoting the project, which has been developed by Worden as an open source software package called Cosmos Code.

Using his avatar (image of someone in virtual reality), called Simon Pete Raymaker, Worden recently spoke at the 26th annual National Space Society’s 2007 International Space Development Conference (in Dallas, Texas).

Worden talked about returning to the Moon, future missions to the planet Mars, asteroids, and other objects within the solar system. His counterpart, Raymaker, spoke of being teleported up to low Earth orbit, riding a space shuttle, viewing our planets, interacting with up to 5 million avatars (characters, such as Raymaker), and going to the NASA Internet website CoLab (for Collaborative Space Exploration Laboratory).

CoLab will be the connecting point for projects involving NASA and other technology partners. It will consist of an actual CoLab center presence in San Francisco, California, an interactive presence on the Internet for scientists and engineers, and an Internet space for “Second Life”, the virtual, interactive learning center.

Besides being a wealth of fun for devotees of “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, ”Battlestar Galactica”, “Serenity”, and other science fiction movies and television series, Second Life promises to provide a virtual experience of real life spacecraft, space stations, rockets, buildings, telescopes, and organizations. The networking hub of Second Life is called Space CoLab Island.

Several experiments are already underway. For instance, the Oregon L5 Society is preparing the construction of a lava tube habitat for colonization of the Moon.

The futuristic world of space exploration will likely help increase interest in the vastness of outer (cyber)space. The potential for Second Life is endless as everyone can soon go where no one has gone before.

The NASA website for CoLab is: http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/. More information about CoLab is found at: http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/slmeeting.

The NASA Ames Research Center website is: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/home/index.html.

Dr. Simon Pete Worden, a retired brigadier general with the U.S. Air Force, is the NASA Ames Research Center Director. Before becoming Director, Worden was a Research Professor of Astronomy, Optical Sciences and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona.

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