Hosted by Comcast and facilitated by Dr. Don Derek Haddad and Phillip Cherner

The Space Exploration Initiative is sending three payloads to the Lunar south pole within a year. We will be taking the first 3D images from the Lunar surface, sending the AstroAnt, a miniature robot to monitor the Lunar Outpost rover, and flying a record of voices from all over the world in the HUMANS project. For this workshop, hosted by Comcast, we invite you to join us to design the future Lunar Mission Control at MIT. Work with artists, designers, engineers and scientists from MIT and industry to help us envision a multi-media Mission Control room, engagement opportunities and how to bring the world with us to the Moon. Through brainstorming sessions, guided discussions and virtual reality demonstrations, you will help us to design the platforms we will use to communicate with our Lunar payloads, and decide what modes of visualization will be most impactful for the data we collect on the Lunar surface. Please join us and Comcast in being a part of MIT’s return to the Moon.

Hosted by the Perseid Foundation and facilitated by Dr. Rachel Connolly

Emerging platforms and space mission assets, along with initiatives like NASA's Open Science Initiative and Science Activation Program, are providing innovative and exciting opportunities for learners to actively engage in real-world and personally meaningful projects. In this participatory workshop, connect with others interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) education to learn about innovative projects and programs, and brainstorm some new ones together. 

The host of the event, John Shoffner’s Perseid Foundation, is dedicated to improving education in underserved schools of Appalachia with programs for student growth and STEAM curriculum development. Globally, they host programs that connect students to space and promote the “A” in STEAM. 

Leave with new contacts, resources, and ideas for engaging your own learner audiences moving forward! 

Hosted by Aurelia Institute and facilitated by Dr. Albert R. Antosca and Dr. Partick Lin

The Role of AI in Our Sci-fi Space Future: Exploring the Ethical Landscape

Join us for a workshop on the ethics of emerging technology at the intersection of artificial intelligence and space. Our session aims to provoke thoughtful discussions on how rapidly developing AI technologies can be responsibly designed and ethically implemented in the context of human space exploration. Through guided discussions, we’ll unpack topics ranging from issues of AI autonomy and human control, to astronaut privacy, the social implications of AI on longer-duration missions, value alignment and safety, and beyond. The aim of this workshop is to sketch the ethical landscape of emerging issues in AI and humans living in space, toward the ultimate goal of developing a roadmap for a short course on the ethics of space technology. We welcome your insights and discussion contributing to a deeper understanding of what it means to ethically navigate our sci-fi space future.

Aurelia Institute is a non-profit space architecture R&D lab, education and outreach center, and policy hub dedicated to building humanity’s future in space, with cross-over technologies for extreme environments on Earth. This new focused research organization was spun out of Dr. Ariel Ekblaw's lab at the MIT Space Exploration Initiative.