Article Research

Collaboration is key for the future of space exploration, HubWeek scientists say

Ariel Ekblaw presented designs for self-assembling architecture to create habitats for people living and working in low-gravity environments
Article Research

HubWeek 2019 celebrates five years of connecting MIT, Boston, and the world

Greater Boston’s annual festival of ideas finds new avenues for celebrating and connecting innovators.
Article Research

MIT engineer develops new way to improve your body movement

Media Lab spinoff company Figur8 has developed a cost-effective, portable system to measure and track human motion.
Article Research

MIT creates battery-free sensor for deep-sea and extraterrestrial exploration

An underwater internet of things monitoring the effects of climate change or sampling waters on distant planets
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Civic Media

Creating technology for social change
Article Research

A battery-free sensor for underwater exploration

Submerged system uses the vibration of “piezoelectric” materials to generate power and send and receive data.
Project Research

The Telemetron

Today, the environments that humans occupy in space are designed for survival. Humans are carefully shuttled to and from space, and durin...
Archived
Project Research

Floral Cosmonauts: Self-assembling silver dendrite networks in microgravity

Biological neuronal networks are highly complex and interconnected with superior information processing capabilities. Such networks have ...
Archived
Article Research

Mars on Earth: What can Victorian-era polar exploration teach us about space travel?

Tom Standage and Seth Stevenson talk to a range of experts about what Victorian-era polar exploration can teach us about space travel.
Project Research

Accessibility of the microgravity research ecosystem

For decades, the International Space Station (ISS) has operated as a bastion of international cooperation and a unique testbed for microg...
Article Research

How a robotic tail could help future space travelers

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are developing technology for a day when amateur astronauts travel into orbit.
Article Research

Honorable Mention: Moon Village, a vibrant hub in the unknown

Innovation knows no geographic bounds in this collaboration, including research by Labber Valentina Sumini.
Article Research

Space exploration and the age of the Anthropocosmos

Joi Ito calls for responsible stewardship of the commons beyond our planet.
Project Research

Maiden Flight

Maiden Flight is an autonomous biological laboratory environment designed for studying the impact of space flight on the sole reproductiv...
Post Research

Space Health Wearables

Designing Wearables for Space Exploration
Article Research

A new grading system could deter satellite operators from junking up space

Rating efforts to keep Earth orbit sustainable
Article Research

Consortium to develop “space sustainability” rating system

The World Economic Forum has selected a consortium of companies, universities and agencies to develop a system to rate the sustainability of
Project Research

Telepresent Drawings in Space

This project asks, how can we transmit experiences across space and time? The launching point of the project is to create a drawing that ...
Post Research

Creating a Space Sustainability Rating

A team led by the Space Enabled group, ESA, and the World Economic Forum will address waste in Earth’s orbit
Article Research

Six suborbital research payloads from MIT fly to space and back

Space Exploration Initiative research aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard experiment capsule crossed the Karman line for three minutes
Post Research

Six suborbital research payloads fly on Blue Origin New Shepard

The projects on board the Media Lab's first suborbital rocket flight
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TESSERAE: Suborbital launch test

On May 2nd, 2019 we launched three TESSERAE v2 hardware tiles into space and back! They rode to just over 100km (past the Karman line) on...
Article Research

The Future's Coming: Why we need to prepare for sci-fi tomorrows today

Teleportation may have to wait.
Project Research

Big Ocean, Big Data

More ocean data has been collected in the last two years than in all previous years combined, and we are on a path to continue to break t...
Project Research

Spatial Flux: Body and architecture in space

Structurally, zero gravity means that we do not have to contend with architecture's greatest arch-nemesis, gravity. This opens up a new w...
Archived
Project Research

ZeroN: Levitated Tangible Interface

Imagine a physical object that floats through the air, unconstrained by gravity, which can move freely to display the motion of a planet ...
Archived
Article Research

Space is poised for explosive growth. Let’s get it right.

Before low-earth orbit is clogged with hotels, satellite traffic, and debris, we should plan for the extra-planetary community we want.
Publication Research

Self-Assembling Space Habitats: TESSERAE design and mission architecture

Ekblaw, Ariel, and Joseph Paradiso. “ Self-Assembling Space Habitats:TESSERAE Technology and Mission Architecture for Zero-g Construction ” To appear in the Proceedings of the IEEE Aerospace Conference (2019).
Article Research

Microgravity research after the International Space Station

Researchers say new facilities in space should be available to scientists from any country.
Project Research

Orbit Weaver

Gravity anchors all existence on Earth.It pulls a chaotic world to one single point in every moment of life. Even though gravity is every...
Article Research

The architect designing self-assembling habitats for space

Tomorrow’s space explorers won’t be able to pack traditional, heavy building materials for their missions.
Article Research

Changing how we build satellites could do more than reduce space junk

Earth is surrounded by a cloud of defunct satellites that can be hazardous to working spacecraft—but it doesn't have to be that way.
Article Research

Uncharted worlds

Descending into the dark sea is like exploring deep space.
Publication Research

Self-Assembling Space Architecture: tessellated shell structures for space habitats

Ekblaw, A. and Paradiso, J.A., "Self-assembling Space Architecture: tessellated shell structures for space habitats," In AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, Smart/Adaptable Deployable Structures (p. 0481).
Article Research

MIT’s zero-gravity musical instrument provides a soundtrack for space travel

The Telemetron was created in response to a call from the MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative.
Article Research

A musical instrument for astronauts and other news

BBC Click's Nick Kwek looks at some of the best technology stories of the week.
Post Research

Earthrise, 50 years later

Thoughts from the Media Lab's Space Enabled group and Space Exploration Initiative
Publication Research

TESSERAE: Self-Assembling Shell Structures for Space Exploration

Ekblaw, Ariel and Joseph Paradiso. "TESSERAE: self-assembling shell structures for space exploration." In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium of the International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures: Extra Planetary Architecture, p. 317 (2018).
Project Research

Physio FreeFall

This project seeks to examine the effects of altered gravity on an individual’s physiology during parabolic flight. Specifically, we will...
Post Research

Curating the human experience of space—present, future, and fiction

Xin Liu discusses the Space Exploration Initiative's upcoming arts exhibition at Ars Electronica
Article Research

Science Fiction for tomorrow's day to day

Ariel Ekblaw speaks at Sónar+D
Article Research

Making Music in Space

Nicole L'Huillier speaks at Sónar+D
Article Research

The Telemetron is a post-Earth musical instrument designed for zero gravity

The Telemetron generates musical compositions using gyroscopic “chimes.”
Article Research

Project TESSERAE, a Self-Assembling Space Architecture

The TESSERAE project is a design experiment in imagining how to bring the concept of geodesic domes from Earth into orbit.
Article Research

MIT's 'Orbit Weaver' turns astronauts into spiders

A new MIT Media Lab device takes a page from Spiderman to help astronauts navigate while weightless.
Post Research

Rhapsody in Zero G

Reimagining research for life in space
Publication Research

Vomit Comet Physiology: Autonomic Changes in Novice Flyers

Johnson, K.T., Taylor, S., Fedor, S., Jaques, N., Chen, W., Picard, R.W. "Vomit Comet Physiology: Autonomic Changes in Novice Flyers." Proceedings of the International Conference of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Honolulu, Hawaii, July 2018.
Post Research

TNW 2018: Designing Our Sci-Fi Space Future

For more on the Space Exploration Initiative @TNW2018, you can read the full article, "Making Star Wars a Reality through Design Thinking...
Article Research

"Life, uh, finds a way"

Biomimicry looks to living organisms to create the future of sustainable engineering.
Post Research

Inventing Smells for Space: A chemistry, design, and R&D collaboration with IFF

A chemistry, design, and R&D collaboration with International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc.
Article Research

A guide to daily life on Mars

What would daily life be like on the Red Planet?
Post Research

Six space technologies we can use to improve life on Earth

Danielle Wood's TED Talk
Article Research

“Life, uh, finds a way”—Applying lessons from evolution to go to Mars

Biomimicry looks to living organisms to create the future of sustainable engineering.
Publication Research

Self-Assembling Space Structures: buckminsterfullerene sensor nodes

Ekblaw, Ariel, and Joseph Paradiso. "Self-assembling Space Structures: Buckminsterfullerene Sensor Nodes." In 2018 AIAA SciTech / AHS Adaptive Structures Conference, p. 0565. 2018.
Project Research

Scratch in Space

The Scratch Team invited young people from around the world to create Scratch projects designed specifically to be played in zero gr...
Project Research

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes (SETG)

The widespread synthesis of common organic building blocks in space could have biased life beyond Earth towards chemical similarities to ...
Archived
Project Research

Social Robots in Space: Initial Explorations

Can we enable social connectivity between astronauts and people on Earth through an embodied agent?Astronauts actively communicate with t...
Archived
Project Research

Smells for Space: Olfactory Timecapsule for Earthly Memories

Each new technology forces us to confront who we are as humans.  As technological innovations in deep space exploration keep advanci...
Project Research

Nanoscale Imaging of Biomolecules in Zero G

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a new imaging modality developed by MIT Media Lab's Synthetic Neurobiology group. ExM allows biomolecules t...
Project Research

VR Maze in Zero Gravity

The brain uses space to index, organize, and retrieve memories. However, our sense of space depends on our perception of gravity. We...
Article Research

Surface to Unlimited

There will be space makers and tinkerers, space theorists and humanists, space artists and athletes.
Post Research

How humans could evolve to survive in space

Lisa Nip's TED Talk