Edgar Mitchell

He first approached Edgar Mitchell, one of the twelve men who walked on the Moon during Apollo 14, and was widely known as having such a profound experience in space that he spent the rest of his life founding the Institute of Noetic Sciences to study the nature of human perception and consciousness.  Edgar told him much about his experience, and what he had learned in the intervening years. 

While Edgar knew of none of his peer astronauts who had such a life-changing experience, he said, “not one of the men who went into space came back unchanged,” a phrase David was to hear, in one form or another, many times.  Edgar felt that bringing this mind-shifting experience into the world would have many positive effects, not just in our view of Earth and space, but on how we live here in our world.  He agreed to join David in creating an organization to do this.

Doug Trumbull

Both of them knew that to bring something like the space experience to those who would never go to space themselves would require advanced simulation technology, and while the Magic Stage was one such tech, it no longer physically existed, and would cost much to recreate. 

In addition to the technology they would need advanced space imaging and visual effects to fully recreate the experience of the astronauts.  This need led to Douglas Trumbull, the legendary visual effects creator from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, The Star Trek Movie, and many more.  He also created and directed two Sci-Fi cult classics, Silent Running and Brainstorm. 

MAGI Technology

He now had a completely outfitted movie studio on a 50-acre compound in the Massachusetts’ Berkshires.  In addition, he had just begun developing what would become the most realistic and immersive projection technology in the world, called MAGI; something beyond even IMAX 3D.  He said that bringing the reality of space into the world was one of his longstanding goals, and immediately joined David and Edgar in what they outlined in a website called The World Space Center.