VR is set to shake up many different aspects of our lives, from entertainment and education to on-the-job training and sex. But arguably it has the most potential to really capture our collective imagination – to keep us coming back for more and provide the most educational value – when the experience feels like something you couldn’t ever go and try out for yourself in the real world.

Space travel is one such experience, and everyone from Nasa to the BBC, along with assorted developers, media companies, game designers and scientists, is using Virtual Reality to help us experience the final frontier like never before.

From rigorous training programmes designed to get astronauts used to living in deep space through to indie games dreamed up to allow anyone to float around the solar system with an affordable headset, there are already lots of VR projects offering experiences that are truly out of this world.

Here are just a few of the ways VR is currently being used, and could be used in the future, both to advance space exploration and to engage and entertain Earth-bound mortals in our living rooms, classrooms and cinemas.