Imagine taking part in a Space Shuttle flight — blasting off and enjoying a view of the Earth below while watching the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope go past. In the real world, of course, such a journey would be impossible to all but a tiny band of astronauts. But in Second Life — a Web-based virtual world — anyone can take a ride into the cosmos by simply going to an area called the International Spaceflight Museum. However, there is much more to Second Life than taking rides into the cosmos, including an increasing number of activities related to science.

Second Life was launched in 2003 by the US firm Linden Lab. The concept is the brainchild of the company’s chief executive Philip Rosedale, who originally studied physics at the University of California in San Diego. His dream was to create a “virtual” country with its own economy and social laws. Four years on, Linden Lab has nearly 12 million registered users and a virtual economy in which $1m typically changes hands each day. The virtual currency, Linden dollars, is even exchangeable with real-world currency.

The company’s core business is selling virtual real estate to Second Life “Residents”. It claims to be barely profitable, but it is certainly amassing kudos. For example, it received an award for business innovation from Wired magazine in 2006, while Time magazine last year named Rosedale, 38, as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. One German woman, Ailin Graef, was even reported to have become a millionaire by developing land there and appeared on the cover of Business Week.

Acquiring Linden citizenship is free (although “premium” memberships that let you own land are not) and to enter Second Life you only have to download and install software from the website. Once inside this virtual world, any new Resident can start exploring, socializing and even buying and selling goods. Users, known as “avatars”, can take on any physical appearance they like — be it a version of themselves or an alien.

Using your computer keyboard, your avatar can be made to walk or fly through beautiful landscapes, doing as you please. The environment is akin to that of a computer game, but instead of killing aliens you can take on “real” lives, attend parties and go shopping. But it is the ability to live freely according to one’s imagination that is really the gist of this virtual dream.

Early days

The pioneering days of this brave new society are still times of experimentation. The buzz of the moment is, it appears, virtual sex and gambling, and psychologists are having a field day researching the dynamics of virtual user interaction. But there is much more to Second Life that has yet to be explored.

“A huge analogy can be drawn between the early days of the Internet and Second Life,” says Robert Knop, a former cosmologist who now works for Linden Lab as one of the people responsible for maintaining the servers and computer network that supports Second Life. “There are huge possibilities, but I don’t think that many people have really figured out what they are yet.”

But what is there for physicists? The International Spaceflight Museum (ISM) is part of a larger consortium called SciLands, which is an initiative that was started in April 2007 by a group of experts in science communication. It now includes official representations of institutions like NASA, Imperial College London, the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and academic institutions such as the University of Denver. SciLands delivers much of the science content on Second Life, which ranges from seminars on nanotechnology to weekly live discussions of US National Public Radio’s Science Friday show.

One of the co-founders of SciLands is physicist Jeff Corbin, a research associate at Denver. Together with his colleague Robert Amme, an environmental physicist who is also at Denver, Corbin is now planning to build the first nuclear reactor in the metaverse. Their project is part of an effort to train the next generation of engineers in how to handle toxic waste and to inform the public about the potential of nuclear power.

“Students will come to our virtual laboratory and perform experiments that duplicate data acquired in reallife nuclear experiments, as part of a distance-learning programme,” says Corbin. “The advantage is that, as long as you have access to the Internet, you can have access to this programme and experience the networking environment of a classroom.” The project has already been given the green light with a $200,000 grant from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Doing science

Another aspect of science on Second Life is the possibility of taking part in virtual meetings. Last December, for example, NPL held a conference in Second Life to tie in with its proposal to launch a real-life satellite called TRUTHS. Short for Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrialand Helio- Studies, TRUTHS is designed to be a calibration laboratory for other Earth-observation satellites so that they can improve the accuracy of their measurements on climate change. NPL’s Second Life conference ran at the same time as the United Nations’ real-life climate-change conference in Bali.

“Avatars can explore and see an exhibit of the satellite in a way that certainly wouldn’t be possible in real life, and the audience is limitless,” says Nigel Fox, a physicist who specializes in optical radiometry at NPL and who developed the plans for TRUTHS. “In the future, we hope to make real data available on Second Life, which would give avatars the opportunity to manipulate and analyse that data in real time, using software tools inside the virtual environment. It’s certainly the natural environment in which that can happen.”

In fact, while most exhibits are limited by users having inadequate graphics power and poor bandwidth on their computers, there is a push to get real-life, constantly updated data into Second Life. Indeed, the NOAA has built a 3D weather map that allows avatars to walk in and visualize the weather in real time in all parts of the US, in which hot and cold areas, for example, are represented by different colours. NASA, meanwhile, is allowing Second Life Residents to help it build new space missions.

“Volunteers can help in the early-stage 3D design of spacecrafts and other structures,” explains Andrew Hoppin, co-founder of NASA CoLab, which is designed to forge links between NASA staff and outside experts. “But also, in the future, why not make it possible for families and other interested people to be in the same virtual physical space with astronauts in real time in, say, the International Space Station?”

New territory

The possibilities of Second Life may sound exciting but, as things currently stand, few physicists have gone there yet. “It’s surprising, but most of the scientists I talk to don’t have a clue what Second Life actually is”, says Joanna Scott, moderator of Second Nature, the Second Life outpost for Nature Network, an online networking community for scientists created by the journal Nature. “Scientists are still either ignorant about it, or hold the misconception that it’s just an online game.”

Indeed, Ted Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at the University of Indiana, has dubbed Second Life a “poor man’s virtual reality”. After all, users have to negotiate their way round this world using their own keyboard and mouse, while watching events unfold on their computer screen. However, virtual worlds like that offered in Second Life may soon be as mandatory to scientists as the Web is today.

“Scientists, and in particular, physicists, have always latched on to means to communicate better,” says Fox at NPL. “Second Life is not going to be an exception.”

• www.secondlife.com