“People who have been to the space station, helped build it, they can’t tell the difference,” says James Bonner, co-founder of Opaque Space, the developer behind the simulation. It’s all built by a team of 12, who split their time between Opaque Space's nondescript office near Glenferrie railway station and NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston where the simulator has been installed in collaboration with NASA’s Hybrid Reality Laboratory. At Johnson, astronauts are hooked up to ropes to simulate zero-gravity and can then use Opaque’s VR software to practice fixing parts of the space station. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video And it all started with a post three years ago on Reddit.

At that stage, Opaque Space was about 10 people, including Mr Bonner and co-founder Emre Deniz. They were building VR experiences for academics – simulators for dementia and Alzheimer's. To demonstrate what their technology could do, they had been working on a side project, a super-detailed space-walk sim. Mr Deniz posted a few images up on Reddit to see what people thought. A NASA simulation engineer, /u/CaptainBringdown, replied to the post. “You textured that entire model in less than two months?" The ISS hangs above the Earth, in virtual space. Credit:Opaque Media “Holy crap.”

The collaboration kicked off from there, frantic midnight forum posts turning first into emails, then calls, then a visit to Houston. Opaque's VR is now regularly used by astronauts training for spaceflight, Mr Bonner says. The average age of Opaque's artists and designers is about 28. They still don’t really believe they are working with NASA. “My first call with NASA was at 3am our time,” says Mitchell Manganaro, the studio manager. “They were like ‘are you still there’, and I’m just crying on the other end of the phone.” Credit:Opaque Media NASA has been building virtual-reality systems for its astronauts for decades, and has its own super-realistic space-station models.

But the VR revolution of the past few years meant a few talented coders in Melbourne were able to quickly knock up something that looked better, ran faster, and felt more real than NASA’s multimillion-dollar systems. “NASA was building or buying million dollar VR kits. They can now get them for $2000, and they are better in every single way than they were five years ago,” says Mr Bonner. A version of the experience will also be installed at Scienceworks in time for the school holidays. It can also be bought by anyone who owns their own VR headset. Credit:Opaque Media To get to space, you strap a large computer to your back (astronauts wear bulky backpacks, so this feels quite natural) and pull on a pair of commercial VR goggles. And there, hanging in inky black virtual space, is the space station.

You can pull yourself across it using handholds. Let go and you’ll float towards the Earth’s atmosphere – and burn up. The other secret to Opaque’s experience is an understanding that outer space is not just a physical experience – it’s emotional as well. A sense of awe is essential. “There’s a real cognitive shift, recorded in everyone who has ever been to space. Seeing the way the planet hangs in the vast blackness of the universe, it changes people’s perspective,” says lead designer Jennifer Scheurle. “They come back and they are more passionate about the environment, the planet. The realisation all our conflicts are so small. “I desperately want to translate this into a game.”