NatGeo – Astronaut Reality Helmet

To promote Darren Aronofsky’s One Strange Rock for National Geographic, we set out to give critics and journalists a deeply personal, astronaut’s-eye view of Earth. Traditional VR couldn’t deliver the freedom and realism we needed—so we engineered something entirely new.

We designed and built 25 custom astronaut helmets, each equipped with internal projection systems, offering a full-visor, edge-to-edge field of view and natural head tracking. Unlike standard VR headsets, these helmets allowed free movement without breaking immersion, delivering a cinematic, emotionally resonant experience that mimicked the sensation of spacewalking.

The response was extraordinary: One Strange Rock garnered critical acclaim, and the experience earned praise from former NASA astronauts, who affirmed the authenticity of the simulation. Following the screening, the helmets embarked on a national tour, featured in planetariums across the U.S., bringing the wonder of space, and the fragility of our planet, closer to Earth.