The Field Trip to Mars

Brief:
Space is experiencing a cultural Renaissance to rival the excitement of the Space Race. SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Mars One, and movies recaptured the general public’s imagination with space. Only Lockheed Martin is making travel to Mars and deep space a reality.

Humans will set foot on Mars within two decades, making STEM education more important than ever. So we set out to inspire the next generation of deep space explorers, creating a VR experience that shows them what it’s like to visit Mars

Location & Scale:
Our virtual reality Mars experience debuted at the USA Science & Engineering Festival and was a huge hit. Over 2,500 attendees took the trip to Mars, even waiting over an hour to try out the revolutionary experience.

Since our inaugural field trip, videos featuring the virtual field trip have been viewed over 2.5 million times and we have generated over 120 million impressions. The bus was a trending topic on Facebook for more than 24 hours, and social conversation spread to over 50 countries.


Solution & Unique Features:
We rendered 200 sq. mi of Mars’ surface based on real Mars geography and mapped it to D.C streets.
 
Then we bought a school bus.
 
The bus was gutted and equipped with custom electric glass that switched from transparent to opaque, plus 4K transparent LCDs, while preserving its school bus appearance.
 
Integrating our Mars landscape, custom screens, GPS, accelerometer, magnetometer and laser velocimeter, the bus became a VR headset. When it moved, Mars moved and when it turned, it turned on Mars.