“Flying” a Lunar Lander, Right Here on Earth

Before the next astronauts set foot on the Moon, they'll need to learn how to land their spacecraft on the surface. For cases where pilots should “fly” a vehicle before it can really be flown, you need NASA’s Vertical Motion Simulator. On Friday, May 31, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (pictured left) visited the VMS, where he experienced landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface, in a highly realistic simulation. This included a cockpit configured like the Apollo Lunar Module, motion simulating the way the vehicle would really move, realistic feeling in the controls and visual cues out the windows provided by computer-generated images.

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