''Microsoft Space Simulator'' is a

space flight simulator A space flight simulation is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade and space combat. Overview Some games in the ...

program, based on ''

Microsoft Flight Simulator ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed sig ...

'' for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. It was one of the first general-purpose space flight simulators and it incorporated concepts from

astrodynamics Orbital mechanics or astrodynamics is the application of ballistics and celestial mechanics to the practical problems concerning the motion of rockets and other spacecraft. The motion of these objects is usually calculated from Newton's laws of ...

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

, and

celestial mechanics Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of objects in outer space. Historically, celestial mechanics applies principles of physics (classical mechanics) to astronomical objects, such as stars and planets, to ...

Development

''Microsoft Space Simulator'' was released under the

Microsoft Home Microsoft Home was a line of software applications and personal hardware products published by Microsoft. Microsoft Home software titles first appeared in the middle of 1993. These applications were designed to bring multimedia to Microsoft Window ...

line in 1994. It was developed by BAO Ltd., a company run by

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, ...

(who was also behind the development of ''

'') with Charles Guy as lead developer. It provided support for 256-color graphics on three resolutions: 320x400, 640x400, and 800x600. The graphics featured

dither Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...

gouraud shading Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes. In practice, Gouraud shading is most often used to achieve continuous li ...

3D vessels, with

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 mappi ...

planets, moons, and

deep-sky object A deep-sky object (DSO) is any astronomical object that is not an individual star or Solar System object (such as Sun, Moon, planet, comet, etc.). The classification is used for the most part by amateur astronomers to denote visually observed f ...

Physics engine

''Microsoft Space Simulator'' uses

Newton's laws of motion Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in moti ...

but takes account of relativistic effects by decreasing a spacecraft's acceleration as its speed approaches the

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 ...

. It does not take account of

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 ...

. Atmospheric effect are not modeled and all

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 (includi ...

s are treated as flat spheres. A limited

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 grap ...

between vessels is implemented by using docking ports.

Features

The simulator featured 14 different spacecraft, most of them futuristic. Historical or current tech craft include the

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 ...

(with its Manned Maneuvering Unit) and Apollo Command/Service Module and Lunar Module.

Reception

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 m ...

'' gave the simulator a score of 84% in its March 1995 issue, praising its graphics and realistic approach to space travel, while criticizing the poor or non-existent sound and the interface.

References

External links

* * {{simulation-videogame-stub 1994 video games DOS games DOS-only games Microsoft games Realistic space simulators Space flight simulator games Video games developed in the United States