eople have dreamed of trekking to the stars for millennia, and while a lucky few have orbited the Earth or traveled to the Moon, most humans alive today will never have the chance to journey into outer space. Nevertheless, various probes and satellites have afforded scientists the opportunity to generate informed theories about the makeup and characteristics of our nearest planetary neighbors, and Planetary Missions collects these suppositions into an interactive and instructive package.
For this virtual tour of the solar system, users play the role of captain on a futuristic shuttle. There are five different rooms on the spacecraft: Probe Control, Library, Museum, Weblink, and Navigation. In Navigation, users choose missions, selecting either a historical interplanetary or cislunar flight, or designing a brand new adventure. Once prospective captains determine these parameters, a voice beckons them to the bridge, where the progress of the trip can be monitored.
When the vessel arrives at a target planet, captains can launch a drone from the Probe Control room to examine the atmosphere or surface of the world below. The shuttle's Library contains detailed geographic, seismic and environmental information on each sphere, while the Museum presents facts on both the Apollo program and many other unmanned exploratory missions. A Weblink, which interacts with most Web browsers, offers additional access to up-to-date celestial data via Piranha Interactive's Web site.
Exploring the final frontier
For the armchair astronaut or astrophysicist, Planetary Missions is a remarkably engaging plaything. Even folks whose imaginations are more likely to be earthbound than extraterrestrial will enjoy exploring the fascinating wealth of data sprinkled throughout Planetary Missions' sundry scenarios, although a basic knowledge of the solar system is certainly helpful.
One unexpectedly enlightening benefit of this package comes from the fact that flights can essentially be run in real-time. Thus users can gain a sense of the loneliness and isolation of interplanetary travel, although the ability to alter exterior views, pinpoint various planets, comets and asteroids, and extensively explore the Library and Museum certainly help prevent boredom. Knowing that few individuals are likely to engage in a full-scale multi-day or multi-year adventure, the designers have also wisely included the ability to warp time when traveling between worlds.
While these properties are admirable, there are a few substantial shortcomings to Planetary Missions. A simple balloon help feature is provided, but both the printed and on-screen documentation remain sparse, leaving consumers to muddle through many of the impressive but not necessarily obvious features. Some of the 3-D holograms are rather crude, especially in the Museum section, and while the multimedia Library lectures are splendid, similar detail is often lacking in other areas. Although such flaws are fairly significant, the project still represents an amazing undertaking, and it ultimately offers space-flight aficionados an opportunity to engage in some truly incredible Planetary Missions.
