No human being has ever flown to Saturn. The logistics of a manned mission out that far into space are just not realistic at this point; the closest we’ve gotten is the Cassini mission that arrived in 2004. But one NASA worker is gratified to have gotten a little closer to the experience with the help of Elite: Dangerous and its modeling of planetary rings around Saturn-like planets.

A post on Reddit details the observations made by the NASA player with an appreciative tone toward Frontier’s careful modeling of the ice within the ring and the satellites around the planets. If anyone knows what these things ought to look like, it’s someone whose job involved handling the probe exploring the reaches of our own solar system. So if you’ve ever been out in deep space and wondered how close it would be to the real thing, the answer is pretty darn close. Except for the part where you’re sealed in a tin can surrounded by hard vacuum, anyhow.