Grand Tour 3D: Space Travel on a budget. 1.2.0

Reviewed in TUAW:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/04/06/grand-tour-for-the-iphone-is-grand)

Review in Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk_iphone_starsmay02,0,7829171.story

(Warning: The images to the left are not from NASA spacecraft. The were rendered in real time by this software. Prepare for amazement).

Ever wanted to soar over Saturn’s rings, or wheel around through the moons of Jupiter?

In the 60s NASA developed an ambitious plan to explore the outer planets, and called it The Grand Tour. Later known as the Voyager missions, they would turn into some of the most successful missions in NASA’s history. Those journeys turned tiny flickering points in the sky, to places; real places that we had just visited. And now you can visit those same places, whenever you like.

Replicating the solar-system, and its major moons in stunning detail, Grand Tour will let you zip about the solar-system at will and see the sights as they would look like at this very moment.

• View the planets and their moons from any angle with a simple flick of your finger.
• Planetary positions calculated and updated continuously
• Real-time cloud images for the earth, updated every 3 hours.
• Constellation names and outlines
• Animate the motions of other worlds forward or backwards.
• Detailed descriptions of each world.

• List of experiments.
• Solid tech support via AIM: Lazyastronomer, Twitter: distantsuns and blog, distantsuns.wordpress.com
• Grand tour is perfect for us lazy astronomers who want to skim across the surface of the moon without leaving the jacuzzi.

So next time work gets boring, take a quick trip to Mars and see what Phobos is up to.

And for a free wheeling jaunt through the night sky, see our other astronomy product, Distant Suns.