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Second Life Spaceports Alpha and Bravo:

Rocketry Explored in a Virtual World


Spaceport Alpha in Second Life
Large rockets on display at Spaceport Alpha in the virtual world Second Life
The non-profit, volunteer-run educational facility International Spaceflight Museum is a huge simulation in the virtual world Second Life.

Second Life is a virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. The 3D virtual-reality service is provided on the Internet by Linden Lab of San Francisco.

The human space activity museum is located on the island sims Spaceport Alpha and Spaceport Bravo. Nearby are simulations of NASA's Space CoLab and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Explorer Island.

The extraordinarily educational ISM presents exhibits about space science and astronomy and hosts events about real-world spacecraft, rockets, and space travel.

Spaceport Alpha

Spaceport Alpha, presenting the history of the Space Age, was opened in 2006 by current and past employees of the real world's NASA's Johnson Space Center, Boeing's space station program, Northrop Grumman Space Technology, the European Space Agency, the UK's National Physics Lab, and the aerospace museum at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Spaceport Bravo

The companion to Spaceport Alpha is Spaceport Bravo, which opened in 2007. It added detailed exhibits of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), the space shuttle, more kinds of rockets and a full-size version of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) – the world's third largest building by volume. The real original VAB was built by NASA to construct the mammoth Saturn 5 Moon rocket. The building is 604 feet (184 meters) tall and contains an interior volume of 4.79 million cubic yards (3.66 million cubic meters). According to ISM managers, the VAB roof also is Second Life's largest dance floor.

What is a virtual world?
Wikipedia: virtual world »

A virtual world is a computer-simulated environment inhabited by users who interact through their on-screen avatars.

Social life in the virtual world is depicted by multiple users appearing together in three-dimensional graphical scenes.

The world being simulated has real-world rules such as gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and communication.

What is Second Life?
Wikipedia: Second Life »
Wikipedia: Teen Second Life »

Second Life is the best known virtual-reality world today with some 12 million residents.

SL was developed by Linden Research Inc. (a.k.a. Linden Lab) and came to life on the Internet in 2003. Teen Second Life opened in 2005. Basic membership is free although there is an advanced level called premium.

A downloadable Second Life viewer (browser) enables residents to interact with each other through their on-screen representatives, the avatars, providing an extraordinarily advanced level of social networking combined with general aspects of a metaverse.

A metaverse is an immersive 3D virtual space – a cyberspace environment where humans interact socially and economically with each other's avatars.
Wikipedia: metaverse »

Second Life is not a game. It doesn't have points, scores, winners, losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. Instead, it is a semi-structured virtual environment where characters undertake social, cultural, political and economic activities for personal enjoyment, fulfillment or financial gain. Some visit Second Life to escape from RL – their real world – and have fun exploring and social internetworking, while others view Second Life as useful for education and for-profit businesses.

Adult residents of Second Life age 18 and up are limited to their vast main grid and teen residents 13-17 to their smaller teen grid. There is no grid for persons under 13.

SciLands
SciLands blog »

The International Spaceflight Museum and its many rockets are at Spaceport Alpha and Spaceport Beta, which connect to an archipelago of islands called SciLands – a specialised region of Second Life owned and built by science and technology organizations that share resources and infrastructure. The islands bear names such as Exploratorium, Genome, and Nanotechnology.


Learn more about space and astronomy in Second Life and Teen Second Life:

The Virtual World
Second Life Spaceports Alpha and Bravo Second Life International Space Station The International Spaceflight Museum