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Microsoft Space Simulator
''Microsoft Space Simulator'' is a space flight simulator program, based on ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' for MS-DOS. It was one of the first general-purpose space flight simulators and it incorporated concepts from astrodynamics, motion, and celestial mechanics. Development ''Microsoft Space Simulator'' was released under the Microsoft Home line in 1994. It was developed by BAO Ltd., a company run by Bruce Artwick (who was also behind the development of ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'') with Charles Guy as lead developer. It provided support for 256-color graphics on three resolutions: 320x400, 640x400, and 800x600. The graphics featured dithered gouraud shading 3D vessels, with texture mapped planets, moons, and deep-sky objects. Physics engine ''Microsoft Space Simulator'' uses Newton's laws of motion but takes account of relativistic effects by decreasing a spacecraft's acceleration as its speed approaches the speed of light. It does not take account of time dilation. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruce Artwick
Bruce Arthur Artwick (born January 1, 1953) is an American software engineer. He is the creator of the first consumer flight simulator software. He founded Sublogic after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1977, and released the first version of ''Flight Simulator'' for the Apple II in 1979. His original Apple II software was purchased by Microsoft in 1982 and became ''Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0''. After Sublogic, Bruce founded the Bruce Artwick Organization, which continued development of flight simulator products and was eventually bought out by Microsoft. Early life and education Artwick was born and raised in Norridge, Illinois, and attended Triton Junior College before transferring to University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign to study computer engineering in 1973. When he arrived, Artwick first switched his focus to electrical engineering because he believed that the degree would be more acceptable to the public eye. As a student at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texture Mapped
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color. History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974. Texture mapping originally referred to diffuse mapping, a method that simply mapped pixels from a texture to a 3D surface ("wrapping" the image around the object). In recent decades, the advent of multi-pass rendering, multitexturing, mipmaps, and more complex mappings such as height mapping, bump mapping, normal mapping, displacement mapping, reflection mapping, specular mapping, occlusion mapping, and many other variations on the technique (controlled by a materials system) have made it possible to simulate near- photorealism in real time by vastly reducing the number of polygons and lighting calculations needed to construct a realistic and functional 3D scene. Texture maps A is an image applied (mapped) to the surface of a shape or poly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1994 Video Games
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; The first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel tunnel; The 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the United States; Skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutus., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1994 Winter Olympics rect 200 0 400 200 Northridge earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Sinking of the MS Estonia rect 0 200 300 400 Rwandan genocide rect 300 200 600 400 Nelson Mandela rect 0 400 200 600 1994 FIFA World ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC Gamer
''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries. The magazine features news on developments in the video game industry, previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods, "classic" games and various other topics. Review system ''PC Gamer'' reviews are written by the magazine's editors and freelance writers, and rate games on a percent scale. In the UK edition, no game has yet been awarded more than 96% ('' Kerbal Space Program'', '' Civilization II'', '' Half-Life'', ''Half-Life 2'', '' Minecraft'', ''Spelunky'' and ''Quake II''). In the US edition, no game has yet received a rating higher than 98% (''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri'', ''Half-Life 2'', and ''Crysis''). In the UK ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Module
The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth. Structurally and aerodynamically incapable of flight through Earth's atmosphere, the two-stage lunar module was ferried to lunar orbit attached to the Apollo command and service module (CSM), about twice its mass. Its crew of two flew the complete lunar module from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface. During takeoff, the spent descent stage was used as a launch pad for the ascent stage which then flew back to the command module, after which it was also discarded. Overseen by Grumman, the LM's development was plagued with problems that delayed its first uncrewed flight by about ten months and its first cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Command/Service Module
The Apollo command and service module (CSM) was one of two principal components of the United States Apollo spacecraft, used for the Apollo program, which landed astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The CSM functioned as a mother ship, which carried a crew of three astronauts and the second Apollo spacecraft, the Apollo Lunar Module, to lunar orbit, and brought the astronauts back to Earth. It consisted of two parts: the conical command module, a cabin that housed the crew and carried equipment needed for atmospheric reentry and splashdown; and the cylindrical service module which provided propulsion, electrical power and storage for various consumables required during a mission. An umbilical connection transferred power and consumables between the two modules. Just before reentry of the command module on the return home, the umbilical connection was severed and the service module was cast off and allowed to burn up in the atmosphere. The CSM was developed and bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manned Maneuvering Unit
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is an astronaut propulsion unit that was used by NASA on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984. The MMU allowed the astronauts to perform untethered extravehicular spacewalks at a distance from the shuttle. The MMU was used in practice to retrieve a pair of faulty communications satellites, Westar VI and Palapa B2. Following the third mission the unit was retired from use. A smaller successor, the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER), was first flown in 1994, and is intended for emergency use only. Overview The unit featured redundancy to protect against failure of individual systems. It was designed to fit over the life-support system backpack of the Space Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). When carried into space, the MMU was stowed in a support station attached to the wall of the payload bay near the airlock hatch. Two MMUs were carried on a mission, with the second unit mounted across from the first on the opposite payload b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development. The first ( STS-1) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights (STS-5) beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. They launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-''Mir'' program with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (IS ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collision Detection
Collision detection is the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. Collision detection is a classic issue of computational geometry and has applications in various computing fields, primarily in computer graphics, computer games, computer simulations, robotics and computational physics. Collision detection algorithms can be divided into operating on 2D and 3D objects. Overview In physical simulation, experiments such as playing billiards, are conducted. The physics of bouncing billiard balls are well understood, under the umbrella of rigid body motion and elastic collisions. An initial description of the situation would be given, with a very precise physical description of the billiard table and balls, as well as initial positions of all the balls. Given a force applied to the cue ball (probably resulting from a player hitting the ball with their cue stick), we want to calculate the trajectories, precise motion and eventual resting plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetary Surface
A planetary surface is where the solid or liquid material of certain types of astronomical objects contacts the atmosphere or outer space. Planetary surfaces are found on solid objects of planetary mass, including terrestrial planets (including Earth), dwarf planets, natural satellites, planetesimals and many other small Solar System bodies (SSSBs). The study of planetary surfaces is a field of planetary geology known as surface geology, but also a focus of a number of fields including planetary cartography, topography, geomorphology, atmospheric sciences, and astronomy. Land (or ground) is the term given to non-liquid planetary surfaces. The term '' landing'' is used to describe the collision of an object with a planetary surface and is usually at a velocity in which the object can remain intact and remain attached. In differentiated bodies, the surface is where the crust meets the planetary boundary layer. Anything below this is regarded as being sub-surface or sub-ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Dilation
In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them ( special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations ( general relativistic gravitational time dilation). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity. After compensating for varying signal delays due to the changing distance between an observer and a moving clock (i.e. Doppler effect), the observer will measure the moving clock as ticking slower than a clock that is at rest in the observer's own reference frame. In addition, a clock that is close to a massive body (and which therefore is at lower gravitational potential) will record less elapsed time than a clock situated further from the said massive body (and which is at a higher gravitational potential). These predictions of the theory of relativity have been repeated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speed Of Light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy (and thus any signal carrying information) can travel through space. All forms of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, travel at the speed of light. For many practical purposes, light and other electromagnetic waves will appear to propagate instantaneously, but for long distances and very sensitive measurements, their finite speed has noticeable effects. Starlight viewed on Earth left the stars many years ago, allowing humans to study the history of the universe by viewing distant objects. When communicating with distant space probes, it can take minutes to hours for signals to travel from Earth to the spacecraft and vice versa. In computing, the speed of light fixes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
