A Medley of Potpourri: Human mission to Mars

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Human mission to Mars

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars

The idea of sending humans to Mars has been the subject of aerospace engineering and scientific studies since the late 1940s as part of the broader exploration of Mars. Long-term proposals have included sending settlers and terraforming the planet. Currently, only robotic landers, rovers and a helicopter have been on Mars. The farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon, under the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Apollo program which ended in 1972.

Conceptual proposals for missions that would involve human explorers started in the early 1950s, with planned missions typically being stated as taking place between 10 and 30 years from the time they are drafted. The list of crewed Mars mission plans shows the various mission proposals that have been put forth by multiple organizations and space agencies in this field of space exploration. The plans for these crews have varied—from scientific expeditions, in which a small group (between two and eight astronauts) would visit Mars for a period of a few weeks or more, to a continuous presence (e.g. through research stations, colonization, or other continuous habitation). Some have also considered exploring the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos. By 2020, virtual visits to Mars, using haptic technologies, had also been proposed.

Meanwhile, the uncrewed exploration of Mars has been a goal of national space programs for decades, and was first achieved in 1965 with the Mariner 4 flyby. Human missions to Mars have been part of science fiction since the 1880s, and more broadly, in fiction, Mars is a frequent target of exploration and settlement in books, graphic novels, and films. The concept of a Martian as something living on Mars is part of the fiction. Proposals for human missions to Mars have come from agencies such as NASA, CNSA, the European Space Agency, Boeing, SpaceX, and space advocacy groups such as the Mars Society and The Planetary Society.

Travel to Mars

The energy needed for transfer between planetary orbits, or delta-v, is lowest at intervals fixed by the synodic period. For Earth–Mars trips, the period is every 26 months (2 years, 2 months), so missions are typically planned to coincide with one of these launch periods. Due to the eccentricity of Mars's orbit, the energy needed in the low-energy periods varies on roughly a 15-year cycle with the easiest periods needing only half the energy of the peaks. In the 20th century, a minimum existed in the 1969 and 1971 launch periods and another low in 1986 and 1988, then the cycle repeated. The last low-energy launch period occurred in 2023.

Several types of mission plans have been proposed, including opposition class and conjunction class, or the Crocco flyby. The lowest energy transfer to Mars is a Hohmann transfer orbit, a conjunction class mission which would involve a roughly 9-month travel time from Earth to Mars, about 500 days (16 mo) at Mars to wait for the transfer window to Earth, and a travel time of about 9 months to return to Earth. This would be a 34-month trip.

Shorter Mars mission plans have round-trip flight times of 400 to 450 days, or under 15 months for an opposition-class expedition, but would require significantly higher energy. A fast Mars mission of 245 days (8.0 months) round trip could be possible with on-orbit staging. In 2014, ballistic capture was proposed, which may reduce fuel cost and provide more flexible launch windows compared to the Hohmann.

In the Crocco grand tour, a crewed spacecraft would get a flyby of Mars and Venus in under a year in space. Some flyby mission architectures can also be extended to include a style of Mars landing with a flyby excursion lander spacecraft. Proposed by R. Titus in 1966, it involved a short-stay lander-ascent vehicle that would separate from a "parent" Earth-Mars transfer craft prior to its flyby of Mars. The Ascent-Descent lander would arrive sooner and either go into orbit around Mars or land, and, depending on the design, offer perhaps 10–30 days before it needed to launch itself back to the main transfer vehicle. (See also Mars flyby.)

In the 1980s, it was suggested that aerobraking at Mars could reduce the mass required for a human Mars mission lifting off from Earth by as much as half. As a result, Mars missions have designed interplanetary spacecraft and landers capable of aerobraking.

Landing on Mars

A number of uncrewed spacecraft have landed on the surface of Mars, while some, such as Beagle2 (2003) and the Schiaparelli EDM (2016), have failed what is considered a difficult landing. Among the successes:

Mars 3 – 1971
Viking 1 and Viking 2 – 1976
Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover – 1997
Spirit and Opportunity rovers – 2004
Phoenix lander – 2008
Curiosity rover – 2012
InSight lander – 2018
Tianwen-1 lander and Zhurong rover – 2021
Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter – 2021

Orbital capture

When an expedition reaches Mars, braking is required to enter orbit. Two options are available: rockets or aerocapture. Aerocapture at Mars for human missions was studied in the 20th century. In a review of 93 Mars studies, 24 used aerocapture for Mars or Earth return. One of the considerations for using aerocapture on crewed missions is a limit on the maximum force experienced by the astronauts. The current scientific consensus is that 5 g, or five times Earth's gravity, is the maximum allowable deceleration.

Survey work

Conducting a safe landing requires knowledge of the properties of the atmosphere, first observed by Mariner 4, and a survey of the planet to identify suitable landing sites. Major global surveys were conducted by Mariner 9, Viking 1, and two orbiters, which supported the Viking landers. Later orbiters, such as Mars Global Surveyor, 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have mapped Mars in higher resolution with improved instruments. These later surveys have identified the probable locations of water, a critical resource.

Funding

Sending humans to Mars will be expensive. In 2010, one estimate was roughly US$500 billion, but the actual costs will likely be more. Starting in the late 1950s, the early phase of space exploration was conducted as a space race by lone nations, as much to make a political statement as to study the Solar System. This proved to be unsustainable, and the current climate is one of international cooperation, with large projects such as the International Space Station and the proposed Lunar Gateway being built and launched by multiple countries.

Critics argue that the immense cost outweighs the immediate benefits of establishing a human presence on Mars and that funds could be better redirected toward other programs, such as robotic exploration. Proponents of human space exploration contend that the symbolism of establishing a presence in space may garner public interest to join the cause and spark global cooperation. There are also claims that a long-term investment in space travel is necessary for humanity's survival.

One factor to reduce the cost of sending human to Mars may be space tourism. Growth in that business and technological developments would bring economies of scale and thus a lower cost of human spaceflight. A similar concept can be examined in the history of personal computers: when computers were used only for scientific research, with minor use in big industry, they were big, rare, heavy, and costly. When the potential market increased, and they started to become common in businesses and later in homes (in Western and developed countries), the computing power of home devices skyrocketed, and prices plummeted.

Medical

Comparison of radiation doses – includes the amount detected on a trip from Earth to Mars by the RAD inside the MSL (2011–2013). Vertical axis is in logarithmic scale, so the dose over a Mars year is about 15 times the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) limit, not less than twice, as a quick glance might suggest. The actual dose would depend on factors such as spacecraft design and natural events such as solar flares.

Several key physical challenges exist for human missions to Mars:

Health threat from cosmic rays and other ionizing radiation. In May 2013, NASA scientists reported that a possible mission to Mars may involve great radiation risk based on energetic particle radiation measured by the radiation assessment detector (RAD) on the Mars Science Laboratory while traveling from the Earth to Mars in 2011–2012. The calculated radiation dose was 0.66 sieverts round-trip. The agency's career radiation limit for astronauts is 1 sievert. In mid-September 2017, NASA reported temporarily doubled radiation levels on the surface of Mars, with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive unexpected solar storm.

Loss of kidney function. On 11 June 2024, researchers at the University College of London's Department of Renal Medicine reported that "Serious health risks emerge (with respect to the kidneys) the longer a person is exposed to (the Galactic Radiation and Microgravity that astronauts would be exposed to during a Mars mission)."
Adverse health effects of prolonged weightlessness, including bone mineral density loss and eyesight impairment. (Depends on mission and spacecraft design.) In November 2019, researchers reported that astronauts experienced serious blood flow and clotting problems while on board the International Space Station, based on a six-month study of 11 healthy astronauts. The results may influence long-term spaceflight, including a mission to the planet Mars, according to the researchers.

Psychological and sociological effects of spaceflight involving long isolation from Earth and the lack of community due to lack of a real-time connection with Earth (compare Hermit).
Social effects of several humans living under cramped conditions for more than one Earth year (possibly two or three years, depending on spacecraft and mission design).
Lack of medical facilities.
Potential failure of propulsion or life-support equipment.

Some of these issues were estimated statistically in the HUMEX study. Ehlmann and others have reviewed political and economic concerns, as well as technological and biological feasibility aspects. While fuel for roundtrip travel could be a challenge, methane and oxygen can be produced using Martian H₂O (preferably as water ice instead of liquid water) and atmospheric CO₂ with sufficiently mature technology.

Planetary protection

Robotic spacecraft that travel to Mars require sterilization. The allowable limit is 300,000 spores on the exterior of general craft, with stricter requirements for spacecraft bound for "special regions" containing water. Otherwise there is a risk of contaminating not only the life-detection experiments but possibly the planet itself.

Sterilizing human missions to this level is impossible, as humans are typically host to a hundred trillion (10¹⁴) microorganisms of thousands of species of the human microbiota, and these cannot be removed. Containment seems the only option, but it is a major challenge in the event of a hard landing (i.e., a crash). There have been several planetary workshops on this issue, yet there are no final guidelines for a way forward. Human explorers would also be vulnerable to back contamination to Earth if they become carriers of microorganisms.

Mission proposal

Over the past seven decades, a wide variety of mission architectures have been proposed or studied for human spaceflights to Mars. These have included chemical, nuclear, and electric propulsion, as well as a wide variety of landing, living, and return methodologies.

A number of nations and organizations have long-term intentions to send humans to Mars.

The United States has several robotic missions currently exploring Mars, with a sample-return planned for the future. The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) is intended to serve as the launch/splashdown crew delivery vehicle, with a Deep Space Habitat module providing additional living space for the 16-month-long journey. The first crewed Mars Mission, which would include sending astronauts to Mars, orbiting Mars, and returning to Earth, is proposed for the 2030s. Technology development for US government missions to Mars is underway, but there is no well-funded approach to bring the conceptual project to completion with human landings on Mars by the mid-2030s, the stated objective. NASA-funded engineers are studying a way to build potential human habitats there by producing bricks from pressurized Martian soil.
The ESA has a long-term goal to send humans but has not built a crewed spacecraft as of October 2024. It sent robotic probes, such as ExoMars, in 2016 and planned to send the next probe in 2022, but the project was suspended due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As of November 2022, it was looking to send the probe in 2028 with assistance from NASA.

Technological innovations and hurdles

Significant technological hurdles need to be overcome for human spaceflight to Mars.

Entry into the thin and shallow Martian atmosphere will pose significant difficulties with re-entry; compared to Earth's much denser atmosphere, any spacecraft will descend very rapidly to the surface and must be slowed. A heat shield has to be used. NASA is carrying out research on retropropulsive deceleration technologies to develop new approaches to Mars atmospheric entry. A key problem with propulsive techniques is handling the fluid flow problems and attitude control of the descent vehicle during the supersonic retropropulsion phase of the entry and deceleration.

A return mission from Mars will need to land a rocket to carry crew off the surface. Launch requirements mean that this rocket could be significantly smaller than an Earth-to-orbit rocket. Mars-to-orbit launch can also be achieved in single stage. Despite this, landing an ascent rocket back on Mars will be difficult.

In 2014, NASA proposed the Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed.

Intravenous fluid

One of the medical supplies that might be needed is a considerable mass of intravenous fluid, which is mainly water, but contains other substances so it can be added directly to the human blood stream. If it could be created on the spot from existing water, this would reduce mass requirements. A prototype for this capability was tested on the International Space Station in 2010.

Advanced resistive exercise device

A person who is inactive for an extended period of time loses strength, muscle and bone mass. Spaceflight conditions are known to cause loss of bone mineral density in astronauts, increasing bone fracture risk. The most recent mathematical models predict 33% of astronauts will be at risk for osteoporosis during a human mission to Mars. A resistive exercise device similar to an Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) would be needed in the spaceship but would not fully counteract the loss of bone mineral density.

Breathing gases

While humans can breathe pure oxygen, usually additional gases such as nitrogen are included in the breathing mix. One possibility is to use in situ nitrogen and argon from the atmosphere of Mars, but they are hard to separate from each other. As a result, a Mars habitat may use 40% argon, 40% nitrogen, and 20% oxygen.

An idea for keeping carbon dioxide out of the breathing air is to use reusable amine-bead carbon dioxide scrubbers. While one carbon dioxide scrubber filters the astronaut's air, the other is vented to the Mars atmosphere.

Growing food

If humans are to live on Mars, growing food on Mars may be necessary – with numerous related challenges. Making soil useful for growing plants using existing Mars regolith is made more difficult by the lack of any organic material in the regolith and by the existence of about 0.5% perchlorates, a toxic salt that would damage the thyroid, kidneys and human cells in general. The environment is also too cold and lacks water except possibly at the poles.

In 2022, NASA co-funded a multi-year grant of US$1.9 million awarded to Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and the Florida Institute of Technology to explore the idea of using Dehalococcoides mccartyi bacteria, among other microbes, to reduce the perchlorate content and add organic material to simulated Mars regolith. D. mccartyi also break down the perchlorates into harmless chloride and useful oxygen along with leaving organics in the soil as excretions and when they die, thus potentially solving several problems at one time.

Related missions

Some missions may be considered a "Mission to Mars" in their own right, or they may only be one step in a more in-depth program. Examples include planetary flyby missions, missions to Mars's moons, and study of the effects of the Martian environment on spacesuit materials by the Perseverance rover.

Missions to Deimos or Phobos

Many Mars mission concepts propose precursor missions to the moons of Mars, for example a sample return mission to the Mars moon Phobos – not quite Mars, but perhaps a convenient stepping stone to an eventual Martian surface mission. Lockheed Martin, as part of their "Stepping stones to Mars" project, called the "Red Rocks Project", proposed to explore Mars robotically from Deimos.

Use of fuel produced from water resources on Phobos or Deimos has also been proposed.

Uncrewed Mars sample return missions

An uncrewed Mars sample return mission (MSR) has sometimes been considered as a precursor to crewed missions to the Mars surface. In 2008, the ESA called a sample return "essential" and said it could bridge the gap between robotic and human missions to Mars. An example of a Mars sample return mission is Sample Collection for Investigation of Mars. Mars sample return was the highest priority Flagship Mission proposed for NASA by the Planetary Decadal Survey 2013–2022: The Future of Planetary Science. However, such missions have been hampered by complexity and expense, with one ESA proposal involving no fewer than five different uncrewed spacecraft.

Sample return plans raise the concern, however remote, that an infectious agent could be brought to Earth. Regardless, a basic set of guidelines for extraterrestrial sample return has been laid out depending on the source of sample (e.g. asteroid, Moon, Mars surface, etc.).

At the dawn of the 21st century, NASA crafted four potential pathways to Mars human missions, of which three included a Mars sample return as a prerequisite to human landing.

The rover Perseverance, which landed on Mars in 2021, is equipped with a device that allows it to collect rock samples to be returned at a later date by another mission. Perseverance, as part of the Mars 2020 mission, was launched on an Atlas V rocket on 30 July 2020.

Crewed orbital missions

Starting in 2004, NASA scientists have proposed to explore Mars via telepresence from human astronauts in orbit.

A similar idea was the proposed "Human Exploration using Real-time Robotic Operations" mission.

In order to reduce communications latency, which ranges from 4 to 24 minutes, a crewed Mars orbital station has been proposed to control robots and Mars aircraft without long latency.

The concept of virtual reality (VR) has been depicted in numerous fictional works since the 1930s.

Fiction

Many science fiction books and films have imagined characters being "trapped in virtual reality" or entering into virtual reality. Laurence Manning's 1933 series of short stories, "The Man Who Awoke"—later a novel—describes a time when people ask to be connected to a machine that replaces all their senses with electrical impulses and, thus, live a virtual life chosen by them (à la The Matrix, but voluntary, not imposed). A comprehensive and specific fictional model for virtual reality was published in 1935 in the short story "Pygmalion's Spectacles" by Stanley G. Weinbaum. Other science fiction books have promoted the idea of virtual reality as a partial, but not total, substitution for the misery of reality, or have touted it as a method for creating virtual worlds in which one may escape from Earth. Stanisław Lem's 1961 story "I (Profesor Corcoran)", translated in English as "Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy I", dealt with a scientist who created a number of computer-simulated people living in a virtual world. Lem further explored the implications of what he termed "phantomatics" in his nonfictional 1964 treatise Summa Technologiae.

A number of other popular fictional works use the concept of virtual reality. These include William Gibson's 1984 Neuromancer, which defined the concept of cyberspace, and his 1994 Virtual Light, where a presentation viewable in VR-like goggles was the MacGuffin. Other examples are Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, in which he made extensive reference to the term avatar to describe one's representation in a virtual world, and Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants, in which a programmer uses VR for robot design and testing. The Otherland series of 4 novels by Tad Williams, published from 1996 to 2001 and set in the 2070s, shows a world where the Internet has become accessible via virtual reality. Virtual reality stories based upon video games have also become popular in recent years, such as the 2011 novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which is about a virtual reality system called the OASIS that people use to escape from the grim reality of a dying Earth in 2045. Other recent examples include Conor Kostick's 2004 children's novel Epic and Louis Bulaong's 2020 sci-fi book Escapist Dream.

Evolution of VR in fiction

Early science fiction works predicted VR as an artificial world entered mechanically or neurologically. One of the first elaborate models of VR in science fiction was in Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "Pygmalion's Spectacles," which described a device capable of immersing a user in a fully interactive virtual environment. Later works, such as William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), predicted cyberspace, which influenced the cyberpunk movement and the public's perception of VR.

By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, VR fiction was dealing with its psychological and social ramifications. Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash (1992) introduced a virtual metaverse where digital avatars interact in a vast virtual society, a theme reiterated in Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One (2011), where VR has become a dominant social and economic sphere. These narratives often depict VR as a utopian haven and also a potential dystopian method of control and isolation. Some of these fictional depictions parallel real-world development of VR technology, showing both the hopeful potential of VR and also the ethical questions of its use. Additionally, many fictional representations of VR serve as a critique of contemporary technology trends, providing cautionary tales about unchecked digital expansion. For example, the novel Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson critiques corporate dominance and the loss of personal agency in a world where cyberspace is controlled by powerful entities. Similarly, Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline warns of a future where society becomes overly dependent on VR to escape real-world issues.

Technological and psychological themes

Fictional VR systems often emphasize sensory immersion, integration with artificial intelligence, and dissolution between reality and simulation. Current academic discussions highlight how VR storytelling shapes user aspirations and anxieties. VR fiction creates utopian fantasies alongside nightmares of surveillance and data protection. Similarly, audience responses to VR-based non-fiction indicate that immersive storytelling can enhance emotional engagement but also raise ethical concerns about realism and manipulation. Additionally, VR fiction also explores the effects of long-term exposure to virtual worlds on human cognition and behavior, such as issues of identity and mental health. The psychological effects of VR engagement in fiction often mirror real-world concerns about digital escapism and the impact of prolonged screen exposure on mental well-being. For instance, the novel Otherland (1996) by Tad Williams explores the consequences of prolonged VR immersion, where users become disconnected from reality. Additionally, studies on VR addiction have highlighted potential risks similar to those depicted in fictional works.

VR in gaming and interactive fiction

The application of VR in fiction is also used in more interactive fiction and gaming. Some fiction, such as Tad Williams' series of novels entitled Otherland, depicts VR as a huge digital universe where users venture into complex virtual worlds. This is mirrored in actual developments in VR gaming, where interactive media incorporate artificial intelligence and responsive narrative with increasing regularity. The use of VR in crime fiction education has been studied, highlighting the potential for immersive simulation to enhance narrative experience and audience participation. Furthermore, the creation of VR-based role-playing games and virtual communities in contemporary gaming culture suggests a merging of reality and fiction with increasing regularity. As VR technology becomes more sophisticated, game developers are exploring new methods to heighten player immersion, incorporating haptic feedback and AI-driven narratives that adapt to user choices. For example, the game Half-Life: Alyx (2020) by Valve Software revolutionized VR gameplay by integrating highly interactive environments and realistic physics. Similarly, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (2020) by Skydance Production utilizes physics-based combat and decision-driven storytelling to enhance immersion.

Ethical and social implications

Virtual reality fiction is often a means of exploring ethical concerns, such as digital addiction, identity disintegration, and corporate control of virtual worlds. It has been revealed that VR can influence users' perception of reality, as seen in movies like The Matrix (1999) by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, which questions the nature of existence in a virtual world. However, studies have also shown that VR has potential in medicine, illustrating parallels between fiction and its daily applications, particularly in therapeutic and training environments. Fiction also tends to examine the social ramifications of VR, with privacy concerns, individual autonomy, and the consequences of excessive reliance on simulated reality. The intersection of such moral issues and technological innovation continues to shape both fictional narrative and real-world discussion about the future of VR. The Rise of Virtual Reality Concerts and Their Impact on Live Music

Film

The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as Tron (1982), Brainstorm (1983), and The Lawnmower Man (1992). The .hack multimedia franchise is based on a virtual reality MMORPG dubbed "The World". The French animated series Code Lyoko is based on the virtual world of Lyoko and the Internet.

The 1982 film Tron told the story of a computer hacker sucked into a digital world physically inside a computer system. He attempted to escape with the help of the titular hero, a computer program within that virtual reality.
In 1983, the Natalie Wood/Christopher Walken film Brainstorm revolved around the production, use, and misuse of a VR device.
The 1990 film Total Recall, directed by Paul Verhoeven and based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
A VR-like system, used to record and play back dreams, figures centrally in Wim Wenders' 1991 film Until the End of the World.
The 1992 film The Lawnmower Man tells the tale of a research scientist who uses a VR system to jumpstart the mental and physical development of his mentally handicapped gardener.
The 1993 film Arcade is centered around a new virtual reality game (from which the film gets its name) that actively traps those who play it inside its world.
The 1995 film Strange Days is a science-fiction thriller about a fictional virtual reality trend in which users buy illegal VR recordings of criminal offences recorded from the offender's point of view (POV).
The 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic has the main character Johnny (played by Keanu Reeves) use virtual reality goggles and brain–computer interfaces to access the Internet and extract encrypted information in his own brain.
The 1995 film Virtuosity has Russell Crowe as a virtual reality serial killer name SID 6.7 (Sadistic, Intelligent and Dangerous) who is used in a simulation to train real-world police officer, but manages to escape into the real world.
The 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes and its 2001 US remake Vanilla Sky has the main character experiencing a simulated reality world while being cryogenically frozen for 150 years.
The 1999 film The Thirteenth Floor is an adaptation of Daniel F. Galouye's novel Simulacron-3, and tells about two virtual reality simulations, one in another.
In 1999, The Matrix and later sequels explored the possibility that our world is actually a vast virtual reality (or more precisely, simulated reality) created by artificially intelligent machines.
eXistenZ (1999), by David Cronenberg, in which level switches occur so seamlessly and numerously that at the end of the movie it is difficult to tell whether the main characters are back in "reality".
In the film Avatar, the humans are hooked up via advanced technologies with avatars, enabling the Na'vi avatars to remotely perform the actions of the humans that they wouldn't do on the gas-based planet Pandora.
Surrogates (2009) is based on a brain–computer interface that allows people to control realistic humanoid robots, giving them full sensory feedback.
The 2010 science fiction thriller film Inception is about a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious. He creates artificial thoughts that are so realistic that once they are implanted in a person's mind, the person thinks these are their own thoughts.
OtherLife (2017) - about a form of biological virtual reality.
The 2018 film Ready Player One directed by Steven Spielberg is an adaptation of Ernest Cline's novel of the same name about a VR entertainment universe known as the OASIS. The film is set in the near future of 2045 James Halliday creates this virtual reality world called the oasis. Halliday left his immense fortune and control of the Oasis to the winner of a contest designed to find a worthy heir.

Television

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 television miniseries World on a Wire, based on Daniel F. Galouye's novel Simulacron-3, shows a virtual reality simulation inside another virtual reality simulation.
The Doctor Who serial "The Deadly Assassin", first broadcast in 1976, introduced a dream-like computer-generated reality, known as the Matrix.
The British BBC2 sci-fi series Red Dwarf features a virtual reality game titled "Better Than Life" that allows its users to experience a utopia. In the novel adaptations of the series, headsets for the game are treated like an illicit drug, and the main characters end up spending many years unknowingly connected.
Saban's syndicated superhero television series VR Troopers also made use of the concept where the titular characters fight villains that seek to invade from the virtual world.
The holodeck featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of the best known examples of virtual reality in popular culture, including the ability for users to interactively modify scenarios in real time with a natural language interface. The depiction differs from others in the use of a physical room rather than a neural interface or headset.
In the fourth episode of the fourth season of Sliders, Quinn Mallory and his friends land on a world where everyone uses virtual reality all the time.
Episodes of the 1995 version of The Outer Limits have featured virtual reality:
- In season 2 episode 11, "The Refuge" terminally ill patients are cryogenically frozen and experience a virtual reality world while being unconscious.
- Season 2 episode 22, "The Sentence" features an experimental virtual reality prison where inmates can experience decades of imprisonment in a few minutes of real world time.
The cartoon series The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest features the virtual reality of QuestWorld.
The 2012 anime series Sword Art Online involves the concept of a virtual reality MMORPG of the same name, with the possibility of dying in real life when a player dies in the game due to the side effects of the NerveGear. In its 2014 sequel Sword Art Online II, the idea of bringing a virtual character into the real world via mobile cameras is posed; this concept is used to allow a bedridden individual to attend public school for the first time. The next two sequels Sword Art Online take place in "The Underworld", another virtual world made with "mnemonic visuals" and bottom up AIs known as "Fluctlights".
The anime Accel World (2012) expands the concept of virtual reality using the game Brain Burst, a game which allows players to gain and receive points to keep accelerating; accelerating is when an individual's brain perceives the images around them 1000 times faster, heightening their sense of awareness. This series takes place in the same universe as Sword Art Online
Episodes of Black Mirror have featured virtual reality:
- The episode Playtest features an American traveler (portrayed by Wyatt Russell) who signs up to test a revolutionary new gaming system developed by the video game company SaitoGemu, but soon can't tell where the hot game ends and reality begins.
- The episode San Junipero features a simulated reality set in different time periods at the titular beach resort town that the characters can inhabit, even past death, as seen with its main characters (portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis). San Junipero is made by the company TCKR Systems as the robots there maintain it.
- The episode USS Callister features Callister Inc.'s MMORPG game "Infinity" that uses virtual reality from TCKR Systems. Utilizing virtual reality technology in his modded "Infinity" game, Callister Inc.'s CTO Robert Daly (portrayed by Jesse Plemons) portrays the captain of the titular ship from his favorite show "Space Fleet" where he orders around the crew members who are sentient digital clones of his Callister Inc. co-workers made from the Digital Clone Replicator that he has which scanned whatever DNA they had on an item that Daly secretly obtained.
- The episode Striking Vipers features two friends (portrayed by Anthony Mackie and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) starting to have sex in a virtual reality fighting game called "Striking Vipers X."
In the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Leo Fitz created the Framework as a training program that was expanded into a virtual reality by Holden Radcliffe. When AIDA reworked the Framework, she created a virtual reality in it in where HYDRA ruled the world. After AIDA concluded her plan by creating a real body for herself, she arranged for the Framework to be deleted as its virtual inhabitants are slowly deleted. In season five, a possible future involving a broken Earth and the Kree ruling the Lighthouse had Deke Shaw rebooting the Framework allowing the Lighthouse's inhabitants to use it for leisure in exchange for currency. In season six, the Framework technology was used by a time-displaced Deke Shaw to create the virtual reality game "Remorath Rumble" that was produced by his unnamed tech company. "Remorath Rumble" enables the players to aid Quake in fighting the invading Kree and Remorath soldiers as well as flying a Confederacy Destroyer Ship.
In the fifth season of Supergirl, Andrea Rojas' company Obsidian Tech started to develop the Obsidian Lenses that enabled the users to enter virtual reality. Though this was secretly a plot by Leviathan to secretly trap them in virtual reality. Leviathan's plot was thwarted by Supergirl and Lena Luthor.
The 2019 version of The Twilight Zone had an episode titled "Downtime" that featured a virtual reality called "SleepAway". This virtual reality has people entering it when sleeping. When a man named S. Phineas Howell was using it while playing as a hotel manager named Michelle Weaver (portrayed by Morena Baccarin). When Howell had a heart attack while using SleepAway and is in a coma explaining why she has no memory of her real life as Phineas, a customer service worker on "SleepAway" named Tom (portrayed by Tony Hale) informs her that Howell has died and offers her a deal to remain awake as part of a deal to become an NPC. Michelle accepts the deal and continues her work as a hotel manager.
The Creepshow episode "Night of the Living Late Show" featured the Immersopod invented by Simon Sherman (portrayed by Justin Long). The Immersopod is outfitted with hundreds of cameras that acts as a home theater, allowing people to immerse themselves into and interact with any movie they want with Horror Express and Night of the Living Dead as examples.
The Peripheral series based on William Gibson's 2014 novel The Peripheral. The series is set in the year 2032 and features futuristic virtual reality technology worn by a gamer Finn Fisher (portrayed by Chloë Grace Moretz).

Radio

In 2009, BBC Radio 7 broadcast Planet B, a science-fiction drama set in a virtual world. Planet B was the largest ever commission for an original drama programme.

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