Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 13, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
NASA is one of the world’s most renowned institutions – not only because of its space missions, but also because of its policy of freely exchanging data. While the entire image archive was attractively redesigned and released last year – supplying us all with desktop wallpapers for years to come – there is now a still-growing collection of 3ds Max models from a wide range of NASA projects.
› Mark III Spacesuit
› Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES)
› Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU)
› Gemini Spacesuit
› Mercury Spacesuit
› Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)
› Global Hawk
› Gantry
› Crawler
› ICESat
› QuikSCAT
› GRACE
› CALIPSO
› Terra
› Landsat 7
› ACRIMSAT
› CloudSat
› Wrench
› Tether
› Ratchet
› Helmet
› Hammer
› Grease Gun
› Astronaut
› Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
› Flight System Support
› Orbital Replacement Unit Carrier
› Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
› ISS (High Res)
› Space Shuttle Orbiter
› Shuttle (High Res)
› Hubble Space Telescope
› JSC Mission Control Room
› Mir
› ISS
› Viking Lander
› Galileo
› Skylab
› Voyager
› Cassini
› Ares 1
› Gemini
› Apollo Lunar Module
› Saturn V
› Apollo Soyuz
› Mars Global Surveyor MOI
An editorial guess is that future low-budget games will occasionally deliver astonishingly realistic animations of space technology. Since various textures are also available for download, mutated carpet patterns used as extraterrestrial structures in games no longer have any justification outside the retro corner.
Further links:
- NASA 3D database
