Explore the International Space Station in 3D
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It's hard to compete with the stunning footage taken by astronauts orbiting Earth.
Now, Nasa plans to make the videos even better by showing a series of tours around the International Space Station in 3D.
In a newly-released video, crew members submerge a GoPro camera in a water bubble which then floats around the ISS in microgravity.
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Separate 3D footage, shot by astronaut Don Pettit in 2012, takes the viewer on a journey through the ISS. The best views come when Pettit holds the camera towards a window to capture views of a Russian Soyuz capsule docked to the station
The footage was taken by astronauts Steve Swanson, Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst while they attempted to explore the phenomenon of water surface tension in space.
Separate footage, shot by astronaut Don Pettit in 2012, takes the viewer through a tour of the topsy-turvy world of the ISS.
In the gym area for example, the treadmill sticks out from the wall while to reach the viewing station you have to float upside down.
The most impressive views come when Pettit holds the camera towards a window to capture views of a Russian Soyuz capsule docked to the station.
A stunning view of Earth from the ISS captured by astronaut Don Pettit using a £13,000 ($21,000) 3D camera
To view both videos in 3D you need to use red-blue stereoscopic vision glasses.
Nasa says these are the first in a series of 3D tours of the ISS, as the cameras they use to take the footage fare better in space.
This is because radiation in space damages ordinary cameras, burning out thousands of pixels - enough to make them fail every eight to 12 months.
But the £13,000 ($21,000) 3D camera brought aboard ISS in 2011 has remained largely undamaged through the years.
'Shooting in 3D hasn't changed much in 50 or 60 years,' said Rodney Grubbs, manager for Nasa's Imagery Experts Program.
'The camera still has two distinct left and right lenses, but now we record to two separate flash memory cards, one for the left camera eye and one for the right.
'We don't have to transmit taped footage and re-record it here. We can simply download an exact copy of those digital files to the ground, merge them in our editing software here, and create the same 3D image they had in orbit.'
Mr Grubbs and his team are now planning to send up a camera that could shoot nearly six times the resolution of a HD camera, encouraging the crew to record more video to share with the public.
Mr Grubbs and his team are now planning to send up a camera that could shoot nearly six times the resolution of an HD camera, encouraging the crew to record more video to share with the public
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