NASA video hypes future of space travel: Sci-fi skydiving, kayaking

Ever dream of taking a vacation somewhere really, really far away — just really checking out of reality?

Well, NASA wants that for you, too, evidently. The exploratory space agency has released a promotional video by the fictional Exoplanet Travel Bureau, which hopes to see its clients blast off to way-faraway lands (or gaseous planets).

The starry-eyed, minutelong video, titled “Visions of the Future,” depicts the jet set kayaking on Saturn’s water-covered moon Titan, surveying the surroundings atop an observation tower on Venus and skydiving on exoplanet HD 40307 g, the newly discovered potential “super-Earth” that scientists believe may support human life.

The video began as a series of promotional travel posters created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They also shared a video demonstrating how the futuristic video was shot using real actors and green-screen technology.


Exoplanet Travel Bureau
One scene from NASA’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau promotional video also showed travelers on a floating observation deck on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
NASA

A real-life Exoplanet Travel Bureau has yet to be established, but commercial space travel is rapidly becoming reality, as this generation’s space race is well underway. More civilians have seen space this year than ever previously imagined, thanks to tech entrepreneurs — namely Jeff Bezos for Blue Origin, Elon Musk for SpaceX and Richard Branson for Virgin Galactic, who are all competing to launch the first viable commercial spaceflight service.

Musk has said that he’s “highly confident” that humans will touch Mars within the next six years. He and others are banking on life outside of Earth as resources become increasingly scarce on the planet. Meanwhile, environmentalists — including Prince William — have criticized the urgency to populate other worlds, rather than invest in our own.

“We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” the British royal said last week.


Exoplanet Travel Bureau
NASA and tech entrepreneurs imagine a world in which humans could orbit exoplanet 55 Cancri e in a gently floating bubble-craft.
NASA

Exoplanet Travel Bureau
The fictional Exoplanet Travel Bureau wants to send Earthlings on some far-flung journeys.
NASA