NASA stole the show at GDC 2013, with a surprise demonstration of a one-ton, motion-controlled rover and rather awesome vision of the future of space exploration: A "holodeck" that allows people on Earth to experience distant worlds. "Let's bring a billion people into a holodeck and explore the waters of Europa," NASA's Jeff Norris told an awestruck crowd at the presentation titled "We Are the Space Invaders."

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The presentation began with a video of Yuri Gagarin , the first man to orbit the earth in 1961, juxtaposed with a video of Spacewar! , one of the earliest video games also created in 1961. Norris and fellow NASA presenter, Victor Luo, then demonstrated various video game-related fields that NASA has dabbled in, especially as part of the Curiosity rover mission One demonstration was a Kinect-controlled game called Mars Rover Landing , which allows players to simulate the Curiosity rover's heart-pounding descent to Earth on August 6, 2012 -- Luo landed the rover slightly off target in front of the crowd. Video was shown of another Kinect-controlled humanoid robot with dexterous hands comparable to humans.Then, Luo used the Kinect-like Leap Motion controller to guide six-legged mech over a simulated asteroid surface located in the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. The demonstrations were meant to show the close ties between NASA's unmanned craft and games.Norris concluded the presentation by showing a picture of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Enterprise D, and saying "We all desperately want Star Trek, and I do believe that humanity's destiny is to climb aboard starships and explore the universe." Then a picture of the holodeck was shown, and Norris continued, "I want us to build a future of shared immersive exploration. Everyone exploring the universe through robotic avatars, not just peering at numbers or pictures on a screen, but stepping inside a holodeck and standing on those distant worlds."To stay on schedule with Star Trek, NASA will need to discover "holomatter" and develop "holoemitters" by 2364 -- not to mention force fields and transporters, all of which are utilized on the holodeck.

Samuel Claiborn is an Executive Editor at IGN and a professional video game cheater. TCELES B HSUP to follow him at @Samuel_IGN on Twitter and at Samuel-IGN on IGN.