3D videos give amazing new perspective on life in International Space Station

Space in 3D: It’s not just for Hollywood blockbusters anymore.

This summer, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst shot a 3D video of a GoPro inside a floating ball of water in the International Space Station.

The men were exploring “the phenomenon of water surface tension in microgravity.”

Another video, shot in 2012 by NASA astronaut Don Pettit, gives a 3D tour of the space station.

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To best view the videos, you’ll need red-blue stereoscopic 3D vision glasses.

Don’t have 3D glasses? Watch the videos in 2D below.

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We can expect to see more 3D videos coming from the International Space Station, as the 3D camera appears to be holding up better than other cameras astronauts have previously used in space. Radiation burns out thousands of pixels in ordinary cameras — they needed to be replaced every 8 to 12 months — whereas the Panasonic 3D camera, brought to the International Space Station in 2011 is still in great working order.

According to NASA Imagery Experts program manager Rodney Grubbs, when the original 3D camera returned to Earth in 2012, the team “found the overlay of the two stereo images forming the 3-D picture may have helped lessen the appearance of damaged pixels.”

Learn more about NASA’s 3D camera project here.

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