Making the World a Better Place with Virtual Reality

SpaceVR will use Virtual Space Tourism to connect us to our planet and to each other, expanding the limits of human consciousness.

“Let’s launch cool s**t into space!”

As far as elevator pitches go, that’s not a bad start, but as I talked to Ryan Holmes about plans for his company’s upcoming launch later this year, things got even curiouser.

Located in the heart of San Francisco’s emerging nano-satellite industry, SpaceVR developed the world’s first virtual reality camera satellite, betting on creating a market for cinematic, live, virtual space tourism. When I met him at the Pioneers tech conference in Vienna, Austria, in May, Holmes was rocking the quasi-guru look — dressed in loose-fitting robes adorned with large fresh red roses — and he talked passionately about using virtual reality to expand people’s consciousness.

“SpaceVR aims to give everyone the opportunity to experience the truly infinite, boundless Universe through virtual reality,” he explained in quietly earnest tones, which were somewhat disconcerting to a cynical old tech journalist.

His inspiration, he told me, was a well-documented phenomenon called the Overview Effect, which is that first moment an astronaut realizes their place in an infinite universe, something they only achieve…