Astronaut Scott Kelly used the HoloLens to shoot at aliens (sort of) on the International Space Station

Two Microsoft HoloLens devices were sent up to the International Space Station in December, and now one of the astronauts who used it on board the ISS, Scott Kelly, talked about using the augmented reality headset after his return to Earth this week after spending 340 days in orbit.

According to GeekWire:

"It worked great," he said today during a news briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. "I was really surprised. We messed around with it for about two hours, and immediately I sensed this is a capability we could use right now."

Microsoft and NASA sent the HoloLens devices up to the ISS to see if it would work as part of Project Sidekick to assist astronauts:

"For example, ground controllers could monitor Kelly's HoloLens view during a maintenance procedure. "I could say, 'Hey, is this the bolt or connector you're talking about?' And the person [at Mission Control] could just write an arrow in your field of view," Kelly said."

It wasn't all work, however. Kelly got to play RoboRaid, one of Microsoft's HoloLens games:

""It has alien spaceships coming inside the space station, and there's these aliens attacking you," Kelly said of the game. "You've got to shoot them with your finger. … It was kinda fun."

Source: GeekWire

John Callaham