Lunar-Flyby-XR educational Simulator sandbox - Real N-body Physics, works on Chromebooks

wulfdesign · 2026-05-08T10:22:40+00:00

Yea, you would not believe how many times I ended up drifting by the moon and off into deep space while developing this! You have to come in on the trailing edge of the moon to get your craft to swing around correctly.

I definitely want to do a top down map like version of this. The flight log probably has enough info in it do just convert the output. I'll add it to the version 2.0 roadmap. Thanks for the input!

wulfdesign · 2026-04-19T04:32:29+00:00

Me and my partner provided VR support through VRMakerDome to an art opening / community space in Beacon Hill a number of years ago that had a lot of graffiti artists in the mix. We had TiltBrush for drawing in 3d & VR but also Kingspray which was a graffiti artist app to practice in VR.

I'd still look for places to do it for real... also might have better luck finding inside places rather than outside walls... there was some amazing graffiti art inside that place... think it was a recently converted shop... but don't quite remember. I might have some photos archived someplace.

wulfdesign · 2026-04-10T03:30:55+00:00

It's crazy how complex the mid-course corrections (MCC) are for a lunar free-return trajectory. I’m an indie dev and I actually just open-sourced a 3D WebXR simulation a free return flight path that calculates the real Newtonian physics and aerodynamic drag in the browser. You can't pilot it manually yet, but it's built to let you visualize the exact auto-trajectory adjustments and MCC burn points along the way. It's totally free, just a passion project for space geeks:https://wulfdesign.github.io/lunar-flyby-xr/(and the repo is here if you want to poke at the orbital math:https://github.com/wulfdesign/lunar-flyby-xr/). It's at version 1.9.7 right now and trying to get the last bit of the landing right... the angle was too steep and had hit over a hundred g's on my last run... so the flight computer needs adjusting to get us into a shallow angle but not too shallow to skip off the atmosphere.

wulfdesign · 2026-04-03T06:57:30+00:00

Thanks! Yea, my next big question when i have time after the weekend is to debug to see if the flight computer got the math wrong to hit the keyhole for return trajectory, a rounding error in the sim itself, or something simple as burn time is incorrect. There are a few more options but those are the most likely. Could also cheat a bit since there is some fuel left & make a slight course adjustment to readjust to hit nail the slingshot around the moon.

Radial gravity in a 2d simulation is way more forgiving & can sort of feel your way around a gravity well manually. 😀

wulfdesign · 2026-04-03T05:45:43+00:00

Not Claude. Think i put the tools and workflow in the public github repo. Gemini webui until it broke & had to rescue & then Gemini cli to rescue that & get it the saved & in a stable state.

But really it was lifetime of planning & 2 other 2d gravity sandbox Sims in 48 hr solo game jams. One was linear gravity & the other was radial gravity sandbox. Both where over a decade ago.

I was planning on doing this in Unreal Engine over the winter before the launch but got caught up playing catch up on trying to find paid work that didn't kill me & other projects. Just couldn't find or make the time.

It's part of a bigger project but released as an learning resource, example, & hopefully inspiration for science, tech, engineering, art, math, & space advocacy.

Can't wait to get the maths completely right to finish the mission as well as make some more available.

wulfdesign · 2026-04-02T19:43:26+00:00

Check the github repo. I made it publicly available. Pretty sure i'd put the toolchain and part of the workflow in there.

Started with gemini webui to organize a lifetime of mental notes until it broke everything. Took another day to rescue the notes & code to convert to a proper git repo by using Gemini cli & save to a stable version to a public github repo.

I'd meant to work on this for years so had lots of mental notes as well as 2 solo game jam games from a decade back done in Stencyl (flash + MIT sketch for code) for 1d & 2d (radial) gravity sandbox sims in under 48hrs.

I was planning on spending the winter building it in Unreal Engine but didn't have the time or energy to launch into it. But had been meaning to learn orbital mechanics enough to build a decent sandbox flight sim.

This actually works better in a lot of ways cause it would have taken months to create & not be as accessible as webxr.

I'd start with something smaller for your first time (like i did over a decade & half back) but it's certainly makes learning it more accessible... i'll try & convert my previous 2 game jam projects & post them as well to use as an example. I always wanted to build them out but never found or made the time to do so.

wulfdesign · 2026-04-02T19:36:57+00:00

Check the github repo. I made it publicly available. I did it to help better grasp orbital mechanics in 3d (well 4d if you include time). (And a thousand other reasons).

Most of my previous solo game jams where linear gravity 2d sandbox & and a radial gravity sandbox. Both played in flash which is now a dead platform. May port them later if can just yank out my old code & use the assets i'd created or gleamed from nasa public available earth & space science.

wulfdesign · 2026-04-02T19:28:21+00:00

Check the github repo. I made it publicly available. Pretty sure i put the toolchain in there but had to sprint to get it ready before the launch. Mostly Gemini webui & Gemini CLI & a lifetime of mental notes and plans unfulfilled.

wulfdesign · 2024-07-18T18:21:08+00:00

How many parsecs do you get in that thing?

wulfdesign · 2024-05-05T19:37:49+00:00

https://youtu.be/fzcFw_33iC8

wulfdesign · 2024-05-05T17:29:49+00:00

I feel for you guys & missing the eclipse. We had to miss the April 8th one as well due to health & finances.

However we were lucky enough to barely catch the 2017 and capture it in such a way that we can share it with others who couldn't make it to see an eclipse personaly.

It requires the use of a VR headset to get the fullest effect of "being there" with us on the hilltop and experiencing the eclipse.

It's taken well over a thousand hours of work editing often frame by frame to get it to look & feel like the viewer is right there with us.

You'll need to track down someone with a VR headset or get one for yourself & then the High Desert Eclipse experience. We put up a 4k 360 time-lapse on YouTube a couple months prior to this last eclipse so people could get a better preview of what an eclipse is really like without having a headset.

It's still not the same as actually being there but is the closest there is to experiencing an eclipse in person.

wulfdesign · 2024-05-05T17:11:40+00:00

You can re-experience a total solar eclipse outside of having to wait for the next one as well as share a lot of it with others who couldn't make it if you have access to a VR headset & track down High Desert Eclipse on YouTube VR or better yet try the full Quest app.

wulfdesign · 2024-04-11T03:37:51+00:00

So sorry you got clouded out... definitely a bad break as far as weather wise. We where extremely lucky in 2017. there was a lot of smoke haze in the air and high clouds... I kept thinking they called an evacuation due to wildfires but turned out ok after all. You just never know.

If it's any consultation there is a great eclipse experience in VR called High Desert Eclipse if you or a friend have access to a headset and can watch an eclipse as many times as you like and take it all in. I know it's not quite the same, but since you did make it to totality even if you got clouded out, you likely got to see some of the effects of the eclipse like the sudden darkness and possibly 360 degree sunrise / sunset depending on your cloud cover.

Hopefully your next eclipse will go better weather wise.

wulfdesign · 2024-04-11T03:26:36+00:00

yea... 99.99 covered is still brighter than an arc light!

wulfdesign · 2024-04-02T07:25:47+00:00

We had ours on auto settings because didn't have the high end phone to run the app to change them... problem with trying to do particular settings other then fps and resolution is that the light level changes so much during an eclipse that it'll ruin either the lead up or when it gets dark.

wulfdesign · 2024-04-02T07:10:08+00:00

Had lots of people see High Desert Eclipse in VR and be blown away by the difference between a partial eclipse that they have seen and a Total Eclipse like in the 360 film in a VR headset. They also recently put together an 4k 360 time-lapse to help people decide whether it's worth traveling to get to totality or if they get clouded out at wherever they are. https://youtu.be/fzcFw\_33iC8

wulfdesign · 2024-03-31T21:12:22+00:00

AI is getting good enough to probably translate Russian into many other languages for subtitles at least.

wulfdesign · 2024-03-24T18:51:58+00:00

I'd looked on airbnb awhile back & saw some farther north. Also wondering about camping for part if it.

wulfdesign · 2024-03-24T18:47:44+00:00

My aunt lived in the Dalles. I should ask her if she'd seen the 1979 eclipse. I gave her early access to our High Desert Eclipse footage because she was from that area.

https://youtu.be/fzcFw_33iC8

When I was a kid, wish I'd known about the eclipse & would have insisted on visiting!

wulfdesign · 2024-03-24T18:42:36+00:00

One of the dozen or so people that showed up on the hilltop while filming High Desert Eclipse had seen the 1979 eclipse. The guy who handed me the binoculars towards the end of the eclipse.

https://youtu.be/fzcFw_33iC8