Spatial Awareness

Can videogames follow in the footsteps of history’s greatest science-fiction artists?

The space race of the ’50s and ’60s was more than just a triumph of engineering – it instilled in the public a sense of optimism about humanity’s future and transformed the earliest astronauts into instant celebrities upon their return to Earth. While their feats were inspiring enough in their own right, they had some help in stirring up public fervour. Some of that help came from unlikely places, like the visual artists who, by collaborating with scientists and engineers, were able to depict a plausible vision of humanity’s future among the stars.

According to Dr Jeff Norris, a team lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the most important of these speculative artists was an American painter named Chesley Bonestell. Throughout his career, he created images that inspired the American space program, and even collaborated with the legendary aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun.

Norris sees that same potential to inspire public thought about space travel in the medium of videogames. In February, he gave a talk at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas challenging game devs to pursue this objective, and enlisted the help of Vancouver-based developer Blackbird Interactive to create a proof of concept to accompany his talk.