Il était une fois... l'espace

Oh Fly with me
Just let your thoughts take wing
Liberty is such a wondrous thing
Leave behind this still sublunar race
Come see, come take your place,
We're leaving soon for space.
Fly with me past Jupiter and Mars...
https://lyricstranslate.com

For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to get to the stars (like others), so the cartoon Once upon a time... Space completely enchanted me.  Then I met the Star Trek Voyager series (which took us to the far end of our galaxy) and the Bright Star Catalogue.

Finally I met the Celestia project around 2017 which I found it's an open source software so I could integrate it into my engine, which was followed by a Star Trek game and from which this application was spun off about 4 years ago.

At first it was a simple Martian terrain viewer. After many iterations, the development reached the point where it can display many planets and moons while keeping the function of the terrain viewer. The real-time visualization of meshless terrains and cloudy atmospheres were a big challenge as well as the simulation of camera sensors of Mars2020 project.  For me, it's really fascinating to walk on an alien ground, fly around a planet at impossible speed or play with time even if this is only a virtual experience.

I hope I can share this experience with others. So Fly with me past Jupiter and Mars...