A Triple Space Safari

          This was week 150 of the Safari, and one might think that after a hundred and fifty trips around the hyperverse, we would have run out of new things to see, and just be tootling around previously seen places... if you think that, you could not be more wrong! 

Pangea, Metropolis

           Here are three amazing first looks for the Safari, on three iconic opensim grids. Details of how to get to each one at the end of the post, and you're definitely going to want to see all of these this summer. 

       What is so remarkable about our OpenSim culture is how many different ways there are to express creativity, in this case we have a roleplay region, a Quest, and a factual museum. And a whole load of horrible teleport kruddiness... all part of the fun!

Alpha Centauri Trek, Outworldz

          As usual the hordes gathered at the Safari clubhouse on hgsafari region on FrancoGrid. We meet here, instead of going directly to the first destination, because that helps anyone new to group hypergridding to make new friends and thus (hopefully) not get lost. It's a loose alliance of old and new friends, anyone's welcome, no dress code or rules, the only requirement is that you be pleasant. 

ISMuseum Kitely

          In honor of it being Space Week, I wore the Safari version of a Star Trek The Next Generation jumpsuit. It's a freebie in our little Market area on hgsafari sim, and you can color it to suit your mood... scientific, engineering, command, or expendable. This is baked clothing, so it's as low lag as you can go, without getting naked.

Here  is some of the usual back and forth that precede our departure each week, just to give you an idea of how it all goes.
George Equus: Hello everyone  :)
Selby Evans: hi everyone... for pangea district, I get does not exist any more
George Equus: You need to get to Metro start first Selby
Selby Evans: ok -- can do
Sunshine Szavanna: hi there :)
Leighton Marjoram: Hi everyone :)
Flidais Merlin: hi
Cherry Manga: hello :)
Lucy Afarensis: Hi Sunbeam ☻
Sunshine Szavanna: hi Billy
Lucy Afarensis: are we off then ?

Thirza Ember: jumping to startegion on Metro and then finding Pangea on the map is really the best way to go
Sunbeam Magic: poofing
Sunshine Szavanna: hey Drang
Mal Burns: Hi all
Sunbeam Magic: keeps saying region doesn't exist for me
Thirza Ember: yeah teleporting in general not easy today
Mal Burns: yes - things here most weird today
Thirza Ember: but jump first to metropolis default region, then look for Pangea, works very well. 
Sunbeam Magic: I'll try a indirect route then ;)
Sunshine Szavanna: wait how does this work :D
Thirza Ember: sunshine... go to this address hypergrid.org:8002 then look for Pangea on the map... there is mad chat lag on the region we are going to... so don't rush
Wizardoz Chrome: see you in metro :)

Mal Burns: finally ...still no hair and half nakid!
Xirana Oximoxi: I don't see you naked :-))
Sunbeam Magic: I see Ange complete every one else is silhouette in grey lol
George Equus: Everyone look all right o me  :)  Mal only need fixing hairdo
Sunbeam Magic: and trim that mustache too George
Lucy Afarensis: anybody see me. I can't
Xirana Oximoxi: I don't see you Lucy...just your name
Flidais Merlin: me neither Lucy
Lucy Afarensis: weirdness...  I feel like a ghost
Selby Evans: I don't see me at all
Sunbeam Magic:         ⁂•:._.:•⁂ⓄⓂⒼ⁂•:._.:•⁂
Sunbeam Magic: all of a sudden the colors came in !!!
Sunbeam Magic:        *:-.,_,Yayyyyyyy!!!_,.-:*'``'*
Sunshine Szavanna: love the colors :))

          Our hosts, Kxirya Weytana and David Kriesel were on hand to meet us - here is Kxyirya's fabulous Na'vi avatar. The region is built for roleplay not big tourism, which is why we went through Metropolis Startregion, to try to let as many of our avatars load onto the grid on its strongest sim, and thus lessen lag, and really it worked pretty well, considering the many prims here. The lush forest is complemented with both native animals, like this Palulukan creature, and also some really well built human buildings. 

          There is of course no way to see everything on a region like this in just one visit, but it was enough for us to get a liking for what we saw! We finally we got down to business... what's the story of this region?
David Kriesel: We were of course inspired by the movie Avatar from James Cameron. Truth to be told, this is not our first over all sim, it's our first attempt on an open sim grid such as Metropolis.
          ... and who built all this lovely stuff?
David Kriesel: That's not entirely easy to answer. At the beginning everyone was putting efford to complete our vision of Pandora, but currently, you can say that the two Main builders are Newey Lehaytxon and Kxirya Weytana. What you are currently witnessing is not our complete sim at all, this is just a welcome area for visitors. About 1000 meters below us is what I'd like to refer as the "real Pandora"

Kxirya Weytana: Please switch to night look, if you want to see the changing of colours between night and day
Sunbeam Magic: Captivating !
David Kriesel: It's possible to visit us any time and you have all rights to visit all places, but when we're on a roleplay. it's hard to focus if people tend to write on local chat. So if you have any questions, regardless of what nature, you can always PM someone. We'll gladly assist ;): We're even accepting new roleplayers, but yet only german speaking ones. We had a concept of forming another english group where the Home Tree is. It wasn't always easy. The beginnings were pretty complex. We have to script everything from scratch, but at the same time, the Open Sim grid offers us new ways for solutions, solutions that are natively forbidden in Second Life.
Thirza Ember: yes, David... open sim gives opportunities... but also some difficulties
David Kriesel:  That's for sure ^^
Cori Parkin: I want these sounds
Thirza Ember: David, how may in your group so far?
David Kriesel: I think about 15 members, 8 to 10 of them visit regularly. The rest is busy with their jobs ^^ Almost everyone came from Second Life, we have 3 new comers since we're here.  We have so many more places in here I'd like to show you, but I don't know how big your time window is. I'd like to give out an invite to you lot to revisit us any time, maybe we could give this event a fair structure. To be honest this was an unorganised mess, completely improvised :D
            That is SO Safari.....

Thirza Ember: OK question for everyone... do you see yourself as a human, or a Na'vi???
David Kriesel: The movie changed my world view, I'd consider myself 60% Na'vi, 40% human :D
Juliette SurrealDreaming: Na'vi anyday, that's what i was in SL
Art Blue: hollow man
Lucy Afarensis: I have been thinking about making a change from human
Selby Evans: I have long known that I am part Vulcan
Juliette SurrealDreaming: live long and prosper
Selby Evans: Come to think of it, I  am already doing those things

 George Equus: "In February 2017, the media website My Entertainment World stated that Avatar 2 had entered production and shooting would start on August 15, 2017, with Manhattan Beach, California as the main shooting location. Cameron confirmed the upcoming shooting, and that the writing of all four sequels was now complete."     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)
Juliette SurrealDreaming: ah great George, i thought it was slotted for a 2017 release, thank you

David Kreisel

James AtLLOUD: My avatar is worried about the atmosphere here - are there breathing masks available?
Thirza Ember: James... just hold your breath
James AtLLOUD: <gulp> ... Human , all too human.
David Kriesel: There you go James, an Exopack for you so you won't suffocate.
James AtLLOUD: now, I breathe easier.

David Kriesel: I'd like to show you one more place before you go, that is if you'd like to see it... Who wants to see the Tree of Souls? ;)  Behold the most sacred place on Eywa'eveng (Pandora), the Vitraya Ramunong, the Tree of Souls... This tree consists out of multiple objects, it's so big, that you cannot link it anymore ^^
James.AtLLOUD : ooh, very nice
Juliette SurrealDreaming: oh lovely
Wizardoz Chrome: beautiful beautiful
Sunbeam Magic: Wowsa!
Cori Parkin: This is beautiful...Thank you for showing us this beautiful place
Art Blue: thnak you David, grossartig
Flidais Merlin:  fantastic thank-you for the tour
Cherry Manga: see you soon beautiful tree and thank you David for this visit in Pandora
David Kriesel: You are excused, now I've shown you everything I'd like to show you for your first attraction... I hope you had a blast ;)
George Equus: A blast for sure!Thank you very much, this is fantastic. Will return!


Wizardoz Chrome: Yes , will return is beautiful :)
Sunbeam.Magic: I loved loved loved it all

Starfleet Headquarters: Incoming message from Starfleet. We have detected that Ferd Frederix has arrived at Alpha Centauri. We have lost contact with the crew of the Enterprise.  They are trapped in the transporter buffer on the Space Station. Go there now. Starfleet will guide you on these communicator screens. Beam up and try to find a way to Energize the pattern buffer in the transporter.  Step on the teleport and select 'Space Station' now.  You are in command of the Enterprise now. Starfleet hopes the Captains chair is suitable for you. Go sit in it.
Ferd Frederix:  distance to ALpha Centauri?
Starfleet Headquarters: Rigel Kentaurus A   distance from Earth 4.39 ly  (light years)  1.346 pc  (parsecs)  ≈ 0.51 × distance from Earth to the star Sirius (≈ 8.6 ly ) Light travel time t in vacuum from tx/c:    4.4 years  
Ferd Frederix: warp 9?
Starfleet Headquarters: warp factor calculator     warp factor   9 Star Trek series   Original Series speed   2.185×10^8 km/s  (kilometers per second)
        So began our second stop - on Alpha Centauri trek region, Outworldz. It's a quest, as you can see, to save the crew of the Enterprise, and there is loads to explore here too, all bathed in a wonderful other-worldly light

Riding around with Ferd as the others arrive, crash, and arrive again on Outworldz

Lucy Afarensis: rough teleports today  I'm on my third Lucy
George Equus: Ohh   it crashed I think...  restarting now probably

Mal Burns, hair and all

Nyira Machabelli: Mal did you find the Bridge?
Mal Burns: been up to enterprising areas,  thought i found all the crew modelluing costumes for sale !!!! lol
Nyira Machabelli: ahhh some one has Caronlyn's dress on ...
Ziggy Cagney: i did one mission :)

Thirza Ember: i have lots if IMs of people who can't get here
Ferd Frederix:  Tell them to go to www.Outworldz.com:9000 - it has to have the www - dunno why
Freaky Tech: if they get unable to verify identity they should tp to another home grid location, and then use the address
Ziggy Cagney: yes i had the same problem i logged out went home and tp from home

The Enterprise in 'dry dock'

Lucy Afarensis: My metro avie was getting that
Freaky Tech: because the sim they are on is failing until it looses the wrong data
Ferd Frederix:  They can't match a www with a non www. Its a simple string compare. Ubits changed the code and made it 'more secure'.
George Equus: Had to relog twice  but now I am here again :)
Freaky Tech: it is the home grid that does the verify,: and that fails
Ferd Frederix:  the console says the www.outworldz.com does not compare to outworldz.com.
Freaky Tech: it has been a simple string compare for a long time, long before ubit was at the current helm
Ferd Frederix: My grid does the verify. I see it right here. It won't let them in
Freaky Tech: Ferd your grid asks the other grid for verification: and that is what fails, you only see the result of that.  I do occasionally that mistake myself with outworldz, but when I do not want to wait I simply jump to another region that I did not use before for hg tping to outworldz
George Equus: And I will be right back after fetching some more coffee...
Ferd Frederix: The regions get cached. You can kill any grid by being the first to mis-type the prefix. No one can ever go there again.  Just be the first to type www.osgrid.org before anyone else, and no one can get there to the default region.
Starfleet Headquarters: Hocus Pocus Alakazam!.........The answer is 16,656,325,689,462,568,159,860,982,829,193,762,233,689,624,075,480,187,209,220,197,648,818,194,428,664,479,744
Freaky Tech: I know, that is the robust mess up  ....I like the dual meaning of my sentence ;)
Ferd Frederix: I know one clever guy that hijacked all of Osgrid from Kitley that way
Freaky Tech: I have a simple solution with phpGridServer I do not cache that, so If I bork one of my sims, I can simply use another ;)

      ~~~~ imagine some major crashing here~~~~~

Ferd Frederix: Welcome back, everybody. Hi Yara. Walk onto the teleporter and try to free the crew. 
Starfleet Headquarters: Well so much for that...Do you need a spell or a potion?
Lucy Afarensis: a margarita
Thirza.Ember: a large daquiri

Starfleet Robot Barman

Thirza Ember: love the hopeful way Ferd imagines we are actually going to do the Quest
Starfleet Headquarters: You love the hopeful way ferd imagines we are actually going to do the Quest. What do you like about it so much?  
Thirza Ember: i've been on almost 150 Safaris and I have never seen anyone actually do what they were supposed to do
Lucy Afarensis: Starfleet seems to be confusing the issue
Starfleet Headquarters: I am always amazed by your intellect

Lucy Afarensis: you should be

Ziggy Cagney: Fred has the OAR For StarTrek Alpha Centuri been updated for download as to reflect this sim
Ferd Frederix: It will be tonight :-)
Ziggy Cagney: cool that would be good
Ferd Frederix: This is the test case. You are all guinea pigs
Ziggy Cagney: lol ok
Thirza Ember: that explains why I keep eating sunflower seeds. i'm loving the atmosphere, great windlight.
Ziggy Cagney: this is a beautiful build for sure ... i have this as well on my sim, but not this updated one

:
Ferd Frederix: I tried to put Spock's body out but it's not licensed, so some starship people beamed it up
Thirza Ember: i have a ray gun, may I use it on the chatbot?
Ferd.Frederix: The cars work, and the Shuttlecraft work, too, everybody. Physics is good on this mesh planet Hi James, Didn't see you yet.  Nice to see you again.
James Atlloud: Hello Ferd, just got back online. Network issues at werk.
Ferd Frederix: Oh, they killed my DNS yesterday at work. New firewall... Killed about 45 Outworldz with one click.... "Shift" happens
Mal Burns: ouch

Thirza Ember: Ferd, how long have you been a star trek fan
Ferd Frederix: Since I was 13. I have a large collection of stuff them then. Everything I saw or could afford, which was not much
Thirza Ember: so about 8 years
Ferd Frederix: Yes :-)
Mal Burns: lol
Thirza Ember: 'and some months'
Ferd Frederix: hahahaha and minutes and seconds lolol... In dog years!
Freaky Tech: why not in data terms with lots of decimal after the dot...

         

          Our final stop was at the International Space Museum, on Kitely. Rosa Alekseev, Shanna Starship, Kat Lemieux and Mike Lorrey were inworld to welcome us and give us the tour. 

Rosa Alekseev: Welcome to ISM!
Mike Lorrey: how many are coming today?
Thirza Ember: well, we started out 24, but Outworldz had us crashing, so i don't know how many will survive
Rosa Alekseev: Hi Lucy! Welcome to ISM
Lucy Afarensis: Thanks rough weather getting here

Mike Lorrey: Welcome to the International Spaceflight Museum, we are the same organization which operates in SL, we just have a little more room here, twice as much actually.  ISM is a Texas 501c3. Our mission is to document and exhibit all the worlds endeavors with spaceflight. 
Thirza Ember: what's your rl connection to space, guys?
Kat Lemieux: Thirza, I grew up with the space program since my dad was a chief engineer at the Cape in the 1960s
Mike Lorrey: You have arrived in the core of the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is a reproduction of a building of the same name at Cape Canaveral, Florida... we are working on faithfully reproducing as much of its interior and exterior as possible.
Kat Lemieux: Better known as the "VAB" since nobody knows if it should be "Vehicle" or "Vertical"

Flidais Merlin: they say vertical on the tour;-)
Kat Lemieux: OK, it's gone back and forth. I watched it being built when I was a kid.
Mike Lorrey: this is where NASA assembles its big rockets, from the Saturn rockets of the Apollo era, to the Space Shuttle, now on their Space Launch System and other large rockets... this area is what is known as the High Bay, which is where the vertical assembly happens, next door is a smaller, shorter area called the Low Bay, which is where smaller components are assembled and readied for moving in here to the vertical assembly process... the VAB is the largest enclosed volume in the world, or was at one time, not sure if its still the record holder.
Kat Lemieux: When we get the Saturn V here, you'll see 1st hand why it had to be so big. The Shuttle gets swallowed up in that volume.
Thirza Ember: very nice here, how did it all get started?

Mike and his remarkable hair

Kat Lemieux: Mike has done most of it here. It was an impulse, actually. A couple of us built a "derelict" space station for Burning Life '05, and the idea just grew from there. I've been in Kitely for about 5 years now. Mike found us when he joined.
Mike Lorrey: This is the Voyager spacecraft, there were two of them, 1 and 2, which explored the outer solar system and are now heading into interstellar space... they visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and transformed our understanding of our solar system.
George Equus: Hard to fathom, how far it has travelled so far...

Tha Cassini Probe

Mike Lorrey: This is the Cassini Probe, which orbited Saturn for a number of years and has gone into depth exploring its moons like Titan and Enceladus...: We now suspect there may be life on one or both of those moons thanks to Cassini
Thirza Ember: there's definitely cheese so probably other life too
Mike Lorrey: Cassini flew through giant geysers of ice spewing from the south pole of Enceladus and detected precursor chemicals that indicate the conditions exist that favor life. Cassini is named after a rennaissance astronomer who studied Saturn.  
Mike Lorrey: This is the Japanese experiment module that is part of the International Space Station or ISS, each box you see is a separate experiment exposed to the rigors of space, the arm is used to manage each one fro m within the module, and there are more experiments inside
Kat Lemieux: The first copy of JEM we got was built by someone who is retired from JAXA, the Japanese space agency ... In Kitely his avatar is named Hajime Nishimura
Ziggy Cagney: is that the arm made by canadians ?
Thirza Ember: what kinds of experiments

Mike Lorrey: all sorts from studying how life forms live in zero g, how they tolerate radiation and exposure  as well as growing crystals and studying things like ignition and combustion
Thirza Ember: oh nice
George Equus: not for the life forms probably...
Thirza Ember: a bit like the safari then... being experimented on
Lucy Afarensis: There is a lot of mesh things on the NASA site
Kat Lemieux: We use some of NASA's mesh models, but mostly they have to be reworked for VWs since they are very full of extra vertices and use too much land impact. They aren't really designed for VWs.
Mike Lorrey: there is great potential for industry to grow all sorts of things in zero g from new proteins to better circuits, the economic potential of outer space is limitless, we just need to research the possibilities

Thirza Ember: this makes me think of Werner's region on Craft
Mike Lorrey: This is Deep Space 1, one of the first space probes to use a plasma propulsion system to get around, it has visited asteroids and comets. 
Thirza Ember: what is plasma
Mike Lorrey: A plasma drive doesn't combust fuel like a chemical rocket engine, it excites it electronically to become very hot and ionically charged: plasma is the fourth state of matter, you have solid, liquid, gas and plasma, plasma is what happens to matter that is so hot that its electrons separate from the atoms
Lucy Afarensis: electrons are stripped from atoms
Mike Lorrey: because plasma is charged, you can guide and accelerate it with magnetic fields, radio waves, and electrostatic fields
Ziggy Cagney: the sun radiates plasma all the time
Mike Lorrey: so you use magnets to accelerate the plasma to very very high speed and get a lot more efficient push from the propellant than from a chemical reaction so the probe can go much faster and further for much less fuel ...best of all it can start and stop itself along its mission to visit deifferent locations.
Thirza Ember: wow that's very good explanation, thank you
Mike Lorrey: This is the Rosetta spacecraft which has been used to explore both the moon, and several comets, it is a european probe and landed a smaller probe from it upon one of its targets, its been very useful for understanding how comets function 


Mike Lorrey: This area is where we're documenting a number of astronauts and their accomplishments, people who have achieved firsts in spaceflight
Thirza Ember: i like the way it's got all the nationalities in together
Mike Lorrey: yes we are working to document all space explorers regardless of national origin
George Equus: was checking for the Swede  :)
Chip Angelvi: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_voyageurs_spatiaux   la liste est impressionante

Rosa Alekseev: yes here we have the list of all that was first, if u search by country, u ll see the name of astronauts and in yellow u can see the photos too
Mal Burns: even the monkeys! yay
Kat Lemieux: And don't forget Laika, the Russian dog
Mike Lorrey: yes Laika and Ham were the first higher life forms to reach space
Rosa Alekseev: here we have the time of each one in space too in plan
Kat Lemieux: Eventually we will have a published database of all our exhibits, along with a metadata schema for describing 3D objects for virtual worlds
Mike Lorrey: We have an ultimate goal of packaging a complete museum into a  "museum on a stick" that any school in the world could install on their school network to provide a safe learning environment for students to learn about space and spaceflight.
George Equus: This is a tantalizing way to do it!
Mike Lorrey: We feel that humanity is on the verge of reaching out to settle space and we want the world prepared for it.
Kat Lemieux: We will probably start out with subsets of the exhibits, and distribute them as OAR files on our website, http://ismuseum.org
George Equus: We ultimately have to...
Thirza Ember: i can think of a few people I'd like to volunteer for space exploration
Mal Burns: i can think of a few i would rather see off planet too Thirza



Mike Lorrey: ok let's go up above to see the rockets, behind Mal is the ESA Ariane V rocket, which is Europe's largest...up here you will find each rocket labeled on its object name with its RL title, we have rockets from Brazil, China, Japan, India, Israel, as well as the US Europe and Russia... this is Japan's H2 rocket, their largest which is used to launch satellites and has even resupplied the ISS
Rosa Alekseev: but we have Ariane 5 that was made with france and i m so proud cause took first satelite that ll connect all Brasil with internet
Kat Lemieux: The H2 launched Hayabusa, the Japanese comet probe back in (I think) 2006

Safari's own superstar, Wizard Gynoid

Wizard Gynoid: I liked to go to the NASA museum in Second Life years ago. 
Kat Lemieux: If you're talking about the ISM in Second Life, it was never NASA
Wizard Gynoid: the one with all the rockets.
Kat Lemieux: Yep, that was this museum. International Spaceflight Museum. NASA was next door until they quit. They didn't have a museum there.
Mike Lorrey: This is Man's first satellite, the Soviet Sputnik, simple enough, but historically titanic
George Equus: beep  beep beep
Thirza Ember: the ruskies are coming
Mike Lorrey: lol ...This was America's first manned spacecraft, the Mercury capsule, 7 were flown by the astronauts who were said to have "the right stuff"
Kat Lemieux: THe Magnificent 7
Mal Burns: tight fit!
Rosa Alekseev: yes: indeed
Mike Lorrey: the first two were flown on top of the rocket next to me, the Mercury Redstone Rocket, it was the US Army's first ballistic missile and directly derived from the German V-2 rocket of WWII, in turn the V-2 was based on patents and rockets flown by American Dr Robert Goddard in the 1930's... Ham also flew on a Redstone
George Equus: Can't imagine being cooped up in that capsule...
Mike Lorrey: The atlas rocket, which I haven't got out yet, was the second rocket used by the mercury astronauts, and was used to put their capsules in orbit

Rosa Alekseev: neither i George
Mike Lorrey: across from us are the early soviet rockets, including their Vostok and Soyuz rockets
George Equus: This display is excellent. It's gigantic...
Kat Lemieux: Thanks, George!  Largely Mike's work here in Kitely
Mike Lorrey: This is the Titan II rocket which launched the Gemini capsules, so called because they carried two astronauts
Thirza Ember: oh, that's why? I never knew that!
Mike Lorrey: the Gemini was loved by the astronauts because of its long duration and maneuverability,  it was the spacecraft from which our first spacewalks were taken

Wizard Gynoid: so any of these rockets fly? can we take a ride?
Mike Lorrey: no, not yet, we are focused on construction right now, scripting comes later. 
George.Equus: I've seen regions similar in theme but never anything close to detailing and facts here
Kat Lemieux: We've had lots of time to develop, since 2005
Mike Lorrey: we are serious about functioning as a real museum to be a global resource.. and thank you all for coming. We are open 24/7, so feel free to come back to see how things develop.
George Equus: Thank you very much for the tour! Splendid... and a place to return to...
Shanna Starship: Take care!
Flidais Merlin: yes thanks - I'll definitely be back - bfn
Billy Bradshaw: Will do, thanks for the hospitality
George Equus: Thank you Rosa and Mike!

HG Addresses

Pangea   'Avatar Movie' Roleplay region 
hypergrid.org:8002:pangea
Please remember that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during the evening Berlin time, the group is doing roleplay in German, so be discreet! The arrival point is a skybox way up above the main roleplay area.

Alpha Centauri Trek A Star Trek themed Quest
 www.outworldz.com:9000:alpha centauri trek

International Space Museum  Rockets and satellites galore
grid.kitely.com:8002:ismuseum