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Beyond the Cradle
Space Exploration Initiative
Maggie Coblentz is developing “The Interplanetary Cookbook”—a collection of speculative recipes, tools for eating, and sensory experience...
Open Ocean
Designing systems for cognitive enhancement
Humans are headed for the cosmos, and we’re taking our appetites with us. What will fill the void when we leave Earth behind?
Extending human and computer abilities in sensing, communication, and actuation through signals and networks
Danielle Wood's official testimony from the congressional hearing for the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.
ML Learning
Maggie Coblentz leads research and design on interplanetary gastronomy at the Space Exploration Initiative, where she is developing ...
A molecular gastronomy experiment was flown on a zero gravity flight in August 2019, using spherification techniques to create recipes in...
Public libraries are one of most trusted public institutions in the US and increasingly provide a broad range of education services, rang...
Ariel Ekblaw and Charles Bolden consider the future of human spaceflight.
A consortium established last year to develop a rating to measure how well satellites comply with space sustainability guidelines expects to
SpaceHuman is a soft robotics device designed to facilitate the exploration of environments with reduced gravity in a view of democratiza...
Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
Seamlessly coupling the worlds of bits and atoms by giving dynamic physical form to digital information and computation
The outermost skin of a space-based structure is designed using materials known to protect against the harsh elements of space. Simultane...
A major concern for manned missions is space radiation. Ionizing radiation is known to pose both acute and chronic risks to many organism...
The Space Exploration Initiative’s latest research flight explores work and play in zero gravity
Space/Craft explores sculpting in zero gravity. Making artistic works by hand is a fundamentally human act, but how will it transfor...
Mechanical actuators for deployable systems on satellites are often complex, expensive, only designed for a single use, and too large or ...
Life on Mars, if it exists, could have been transferred between Earth and Mars due to meteorite impacts. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial...
In microgravity, the removal of constant loading on the skeleton leads to loss of bone density and muscle mass. In order to counteract th...
The Orbit Weaver Suit for zero gravity was designed by Media Lab Director's Fellow Andrea Lauer in collaboration with ...
In 2015, the director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), Jan Wörner, introduced the concept of the “Moon Village.” Inspired by t...
This mission included participation from several departments at MIT and outside collaborators from across the globe.
Neil Gaikwad, a third-year PhD student in the Space Enabled research group, has been selected as one of the 2019 Facebook Fellows.
The Lut Desert of Iran is one of the most similar regions to Mars. Close to that area, there are vernacular adobe architectures that are ...
Danielle Wood discusses the satellite technology research and other work underway in her Space Enabled research group.
Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellow Prathima Muniyappa uses the transformative power of design to empower marginalized indigenous communities.
Advancing justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space
Lab on Body, Synthetic Biology, and Bio-Digital Systems for Health and Human Enhancement
Humanity is facing thorny problems on all fronts. These folks are working to solve them—and trying to avoid the unintended consequences.
Hairstyles, musical instruments and gardening all change in zero gravity, scientist Sands Fish says.
When contemplating the future of life in space, we dream not only of rockets and off-world societies, but also of art, of leisure, and fr...
Ariel Ekblaw presented designs for self-assembling architecture to create habitats for people living and working in low-gravity environments
Overview: How will we build the coming generations of Space Architecture—the modules, space ships, and space stations that will ensc...
Greater Boston’s annual festival of ideas finds new avenues for celebrating and connecting innovators.
Media Lab spinoff company Figur8 has developed a cost-effective, portable system to measure and track human motion.
An underwater internet of things monitoring the effects of climate change or sampling waters on distant planets
Creating technology for social change
Submerged system uses the vibration of “piezoelectric” materials to generate power and send and receive data.
Today, the environments that humans occupy in space are designed for survival. Humans are carefully shuttled to and from space, and durin...
Biological neuronal networks are highly complex and interconnected with superior information processing capabilities. Such networks have ...
We present Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter (PAB), the first technology that enables backscatter networking in underwater environments. PAB rel...
Tom Standage and Seth Stevenson talk to a range of experts about what Victorian-era polar exploration can teach us about space travel.
For decades, the International Space Station (ISS) has operated as a bastion of international cooperation and a unique testbed for microg...
Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are developing technology for a day when amateur astronauts travel into orbit.
Innovation knows no geographic bounds in this collaboration, including research by Labber Valentina Sumini.
Paraffin wax (common candlewax) shows promise as a high-performing hybrid rocket propellant for chemical propulsion systems. Its inherent...
Can a modified snap bracelet be used to land infrastructure on an asteroid? It is notoriously difficult to stick a landing on a low ...
Living Distance is a mission and a fantasy realized, in which a wisdom tooth is sent to outer space and back down to Earth again. Carried...
Joi Ito calls for responsible stewardship of the commons beyond our planet.
When we say we’re “democratizing access to space exploration,” what do we mean?
Maiden Flight is an autonomous biological laboratory environment designed for studying the impact of space flight on the sole reproductiv...
Designing Wearables for Space Exploration
Rating efforts to keep Earth orbit sustainable
The World Economic Forum has selected a consortium of companies, universities and agencies to develop a system to rate the sustainability of
This project asks, how can we transmit experiences across space and time? The launching point of the project is to create a drawing that ...
A team led by the Space Enabled group, ESA, and the World Economic Forum will address waste in Earth’s orbit
Space Exploration Initiative research aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard experiment capsule crossed the Karman line for three minutes
The projects on board the Media Lab's first suborbital rocket flight
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...
Teleportation may have to wait.
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...
Structurally, zero gravity means that we do not have to contend with architecture's greatest arch-nemesis, gravity. This opens up a new w...
The future of human life outside of Earth will heavily depend on the ability to fabricate and manufacture things. Yet fabrication in spac...
Imagine a physical object that floats through the air, unconstrained by gravity, which can move freely to display the motion of a planet ...
Before low-earth orbit is clogged with hotels, satellite traffic, and debris, we should plan for the extra-planetary community we want.
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).