National Geographic’s MARS pushed along an innovation in the virtual reality attraction space.

Those are conservative estimates.

How Do You Land On A VR Mars?

They had roughly two months to go from VR concept to fully-engaged Mars mission.

What they essentially had to do was develop a full-fledged virtual reality ride, the first of its kind.

Nobodys ever been to Mars, and certainly not us.

You have to ask yourself those questions.

What do you feel when you fly through space or go through the martian atmosphere?

What are you going to feel when youre flying over a canyon?

TAIT had the rig and cable robot automation system to support a two-seat ride.

Next they needed to find the right VR company to build out the immersive animations.

We didnt have a ton of background in VR, says Mike Bridgman, co-founder of MajorMega.

It was kind of a recent pivot for us.

People were walking by like what the heck is [Sean] doing in there?

The HTC Vive proved to difficult to crack under time constraints, leading to an Oculus Rift victory.

Adds Hennessey: Not having this end-goal of making this project, we wouldve never figured it out.

Finesse and art comes into it, Gasper says.

Free of unruly martian weather elements, their Mars mission was still constrained by speed and space.

Were surprisingly limited, Gasper says.

Its a small rig.

Its a 25 x 25 x 25 triangle.

We can only tilt so much and go so fast.

Stepping into the triangular space hardly feels like entering the cockpit of a spaceship.

When you put those goggles on, you actually dont really know whats happening, Bridgman says.

In the VR world, youre only feeling the forces.

Theres nothing else telling you whats happening.

Its a really neat thing to play with.

Most of the jerking motion and twists of the cables take place with the ride low to the ground.

Within the headset, thats actually visualizing a landing.

Its a sample-sized taste of a future we can only hope to realize.

From TAITs perspective, weve now used this as a product.

The next level to this is putting the controls on board the vehicle.

VR experiences likeThe Voidand AustraliasZero Latencyare popular names in the booming business of virtual reality attractions.

Those businesses keep you grounded in immersive first-person shooters.

The closest thing weve seen in the ride space isSix Flags adding VR headsetsto an existing roller coaster.

If you put one of these in, you might change that experience every month.

After completing the MARS project, MajorMega is already exploringtheir future in the VR attraction space.

To them, its the next frontier.

Thats what really takes virtual reality to the next level of reality.