NMC Campus Observer

Third Time Charm

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Jul 4, 2006 01:12pm

Up Up and Away
Originally uploaded by NMC Second Life

Today was NASA’s third time this week hoping on good weather for the liftoff of the Space Shuttle. How cool it went smoothly on July 4!

I was among 70 avatars watching the coverage live from the International Space Flight Museum in Second Life (they capped the attendance at 70).

You can catch some of it via snapshots I loaded into a flickr slide show, and if you like, you can listen to the audio that came from NASA during the 20 minutes or so I was there (I turned on my WireTap Pro to record all sound coming into my computer, there might be some background ‘tap-tap’ from Second Life’s chat interface).

The whole experience was unlike any other I can remember in terms of the communal excitement. Sure, there was the Apollo 11 lift off and moon landing I watched on black and white TV in my parent’s living room, and there were the elementary school assemblies where we would gather to watch the astronauts splash down.

But today was just like a volcano of excitement– maybe because there were a lot of space fans here, but maybe, just maybe, because via Second Life, I shared the eperience vividly with 70 people… whom I do not even know.

And nicely, Second Life performed up to task, no lag, no crashes… in fact I almost lost track of where I was watching this.

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