susana

Bill Meyer - NYU itp grad ('02)
further developed his Telepresence ITP thesis project "Immersive Virtual Reality as a Countermeasure for Dysphoria in Space/Expeditionary Environments" and will be presenting it to the Aeronautics and Astronautics field here in Long Beach at the:

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
Space 2003 Conference, Long Beach, CA; September 23-25, 2003
http://www.aiaa.org/SPACE2003/

ABSTRACT
Loneliness, depression, and anxiety pose obstacles to long-term
manned space missions; these are a subset of the symptoms Russian
scientists term asthenia. Debate exists about the syndrome, but
recreational options, and contact with loved ones, appear to mitigate
astronaut dysphoria. Telepresence and virtual reality systems hold
promise to support these coping strategies.
A new immersive VR approach, "closed eyes telehaptic communication,"
appears uniquely suited for space flight and expeditionary
environments. An existing prototype enables physically distant pairs
of individuals to experience each other's presence, with eyes closed,
in a shared virtual space, designed to be easily co-imagined.
Biometric information is passed between users, non-visually, via
subtle haptic (touch) and sound cues. The nature and theory of the
system, as well as ongoing experiments to test emotional effects
between users, are discussed. The Profile of Mood States (POMS)
questionnaire is being used as a psychometric instrument.
If proven effective, such systems would be inexpensive, compact,
lightweight and stable, consuming minimal additional communications
bandwidth. Necessary biometric data is already gathered in real time,
and communicated via telemetry. Additional hardware is limited to
haptic effectors and microprocessors. VR software could help
compensate for long communication latencies between earth and
spacecraft users, and adapt to changing user requirements. Several
other compelling implications are discussed.

(*i wonder, how viable IS space exploration? economically, socially?)