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SpaceCHI: Designing Human-Computer Interaction Systems for
Space Exploration
Pat Pataranutaporn
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, MA, United States
patpat@media.mit.edu
Valentina Sumini
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, MA, United States
vsumini@media.mit.edu
Ariel Ekblaw
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, MA, United States
aekblaw@media.mit.edu
Melodie Yashar
San Jose State Research Foundation,
NASA Ames
Los Angeles
,
California
,
United States
melodieyashar@gmail.com
Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger
Vienna University of Technology
Austria
haeuplik@hb2.tuwien.ac.at
Susanna Testa
Politecnico di Milano
Milan, Italy
susanna.testa@polimi.it
Marianna Obrist
University College London
UK
m.obrist@ucl.ac.uk
Dorit Donoviel
Translational Research Institute for
Space Health
United States
donoviel@bcm.edu
Joseph Paradiso
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, MA, United States
joep@media.mit.edu
Pattie Maes
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, MA, United States
pattie@media.mit.edu
Figure 1: Areas of Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration
ABSTRACT
Space travel and becoming an interplanetary species have always
been part of human’s greatest imagination. Research in space ex-
ploration helps us advance our knowledge in fundamental sciences,
and challenges us to design new technology and create new in-
dustries for space. However, keeping a human healthy, happy and
productive in space is one of the most challenging aspects of current
space programs. Our biological body, which evolved in the earth
CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan Pataranutaporn and Sumini, et al.
specic environment, can barely survive by itself in space’s extreme
conditions with high radiation, low gravity, etc. This is similar for
the moons and planets in the solar system that humans plan to
visit. Therefore, researchers have been developing dierent types
of human-computer interfaces systems that support humans’ phys-
ical and mental performance in space. With recent advancements
in aerospace engineering, and the democratized access to space
through aerospace tech startups such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc.,
space research is becoming more plausible and accessible. Thus,
there is an exciting opportunity for researchers in HCI to contribute
to the great endeavor of space exploration by designing new types
of interactive systems and computer interfaces that can support
humans living and working in space and elsewhere in the solar
system.
CCS CONCEPTS
•Human-centered computing →Human computer interac-
tion (HCI)
;
Interactive systems and tools
;
HCI design and
evaluation methods.
KEYWORDS
Space Exploration, Interplanetary Research, Aerospace, Astronaut
ACM Reference Format:
Pat Pataranutaporn, Valentina Sumini, Ariel Ekblaw, Melodie Yashar, San-
dra Häuplik-Meusburger, Susanna Testa, Marianna Obrist, Dorit Donoviel,
Joseph Paradiso, and Pattie Maes. 2021. SpaceCHI: Designing Human-
Computer Interaction Systems for Space Exploration. In CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (CHI ’21 Extended
Abstracts), May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA,
6 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3441358
1 BACKGROUND
Space travel and becoming an interplanetary species have always
been a part of humanity’s greatest imaginings even before our
scientic and engineering capabilities would allow these ideas to
become a reality. Science ction authors, such as Arthur C. Clarke
in "2001:A Space Odyssey", have speculated for decades on the
lifestyle of the future space-station-dwelling humans, often includ-
ing ideas such as working across planets (like in Clarke’s novel).
Space exploration not only helps us to advance our knowledge
in the fundamental sciences, it also challenges us to design new
technologies and to create new industries, all while prompting us
to answer fundamental questions about our place in the Universe.
keeping a human healthy, happy and productive in space, how-
ever, remains one of the most challenging missions facing current
space programs. Our biological body, which evolved in the Earth’s
environment, cannot survive by itself in extreme conditions such
as high radiation exposure, low gravity, high temperature gradi-
ents, etc. [
5
]. This has lead researchers to develop dierent types of
human-computer interface systems (HCI) that support physical and
mental performances in space. These Space HCI projects range from
exoskeletons for supporting humans in low-gravity [
10
,
11
,
13
], to
virtual reality [
4
,
9
] and augmented reality [
6
,
7
] systems for inter-
planetary exploration, and even zero-gravity musical interfaces for
entertainment during space missions [3].
This area of research can be traced back to 1960 - one year prior
to when Yuri A. Gagarin (the rst human in space) completed his
rst Earth orbit - when pioneers in Human-Computer Interaction
(HCI): Clynes & Kline had laid the foundation of human-machine
symbiosis for space exploration by developing the term “Cyborg”,
aka a“Cybernetic Organism”. They argued that the rst step towards
becoming an interplanetary species required an examination of
“homeostatic mechanisms found in organisms that are designed
to provide stable operation in the particular environment of the
organism” [
2
]. Clynes & Kline foresaw the role of technology as
digital organs that would regulate resources and provide real-time
assistance as well as interventions to keep the human body alive in
extreme environments. While the rst on-body technology enabling
humans to complete a mission in space was simply a pressurized
space suit (a piece of technology far from the vision of cyborgs),
such technology became the rst step towards long-term human-
machine interfaces for space exploration.
Beyond on-body technology which supports astronauts living
in space, HCI researchers also seek to bring a humanistic touch to
space exploration and have made many signicant contributions
by designing tools and technologies that not only allow humans to
live, but to thrive in space. For instance, researchers have studied
the use of multi-sensory experiences to enhance and mediate space
food to compensate for sensory loss and limited resources [
8
]. With
advancements in aerospace engineering and the democratized ac-
cess to space through aerospace tech companies such as SpaceX
and Blue Origin, space research is becoming more plausible and ac-
cessible. The dropping costs of space launches and cubesats enable
new interdisciplinary research in art, design, architecture, science,
and engineering in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and beyond. What was
once an exclusive, expensive, and narrowly serious pursuit is now
evolving to include a vast array of diverse possibilities. With the
commercialization of space ights, it is probable that space travel
in the near future will not be restricted to specially trained people,
but will be open to a more general class of space worker and even
tourists [
12
]. Thus, there is an exciting opportunity for researchers
in HCI to contribute to the great endeavor of space exploration by
designing new types of interactive systems and computer interfaces
which can support human living in space and beyond [1].
To inform and inspire participants in thinking about the oppor-
tunities for Space HCI, the goals of our workshop are as follows:
(1)
Identifying possibilities, gaps and challenges for HCI re-
searchers in designing technology for space exploration
through consideration of the current and future possibilities.
(2)
Developing inspiring and meaningful scenarios, lessons, use
cases, and applications for Space HCI research.
(3)
Brainstorming strategies for deploying HCI research in
space.
2 ORGANIZERS
2.1 Pat Pataranutaporn
Pat Pataranutaporn is an anti-disciplinary technolo-
gist/scientist/artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT). He is part of the Fluid Interfaces research group at MIT
Media Lab, which specializes in designing on-body technology
for human enhancement. Pat’s research is at the intersection
SpaceCHI: Designing Human-Computer Interaction Systems for Space Exploration CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan
of biotechnology and wearable computing, specically at the
interface between biological and digital systems. Pat has worked
with global collaborators including NASA TRISH, IBM Research,
Bose, Harvard University, UCSB, ASU, NTU, and more, to examine
the symbiotic relationships between human and technology. His
interdisciplinary research ranges from: investigating human-AI
interactions; developing wearable labs on the body with pro-
grammable bio-digital organs for space exploration; developing
machine learning models to detect linguistic markers related to
mental health issues; developing and designing mind-controlled
3D printers.
Pat’s research has been published in IEEE, ACM SIGCHI, ACM
SIGGRAPH, ACM ISWC, ACM Augmented Humans, Royal Society
of Chemistry, etc. He also serves as a reviewer and editor for IEEE
and ACM publications. Pat’s artistic projects have been exhibited
at the National Museum of Singapore (Singapore), Essex Peabody
Museum (USA), London Design Festival (UK), Transmediale Festival
(Germany), National Taiwan Science Education Center (Taiwan),
IDEA Museum (Arizona), Mesa Arts Center (Arizona), Autodesk
Gallery (California), and more.
2.2 Valentina Sumini
Valentina Sumini, PhD, is Space Architect and Research Aliate at
the MIT Media Lab in the Responsive Environments research group
and the Space Exploration Initiative. Valentina is also a Visiting
Professor at Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches the course
"Architecture for Human Space Exploration" at the School of Ar-
chitecture, Urban Planning, and Construction Engineering. She
develops design solutions and architectures to sustain human life
in extreme environments on Earth, and to enable human space ex-
ploration in Low Earth Orbit, on the Moon and Mars. Her passion
in advancing human performance during deep space exploration
missions dates back to 2009 when she designed a hotel on the lunar
surface for democratizing the access of space for tourists. Over
the years she developed more in-depth studies at MIT and MIT
Media Lab, which she applied to dierent scenarios and award
winning competition projects, mainly organized by international
space agencies, such as: a Space Hotel orbiting in Low Earth Orbit
around Earth (NASA RASC-AL Competition 2017); a city on Mars
and its generative design model (Mars City Design Competition
2017 ); a greenhouse on Mars (NASA Big Idea Challenge 2019);
an ice extraction system for Mars (NASA RASC-AL Competition
2018); a Moon Village (European Space Agency); a soft robotic ex-
oskeleton for enhancing astronaut movements and performance
in microgravity and a pavilion; the Tidmarsh Living Observatory
Portal (NASA TRISH), used to reconnect astronauts with nature
during long duration missions.
Valentina’s work has been featured among others in MIT News,
Harvard Design Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, WIRED,
Structure Magazine, IAC, IASS, CHI and AIAA proceedings, and
TEDx Talks. She is Vice Chair of the ASCE Earth and Space Tech-
nical Committee (American Society of Civil Engineers), a member
of the Space Generation Advisory Council, and a reviewer for the
American Society of Civil Engineers of Practice Periodical on Struc-
tural Design and Construction.
2.3 Ariel Ekblaw
Ariel Ekblaw is the founder and Director of the MIT Space Explo-
ration Initiative, a team of over 50 graduate students, sta, and
faculty actively prototyping artifacts for our Sci-Fi space future.
Founded in 2016, the Initiative now includes a portfolio of 40+
research projects focused on life in space (from astro-biology to
space habitats), and supports an accelerator-like R&D program that
enables a broad range of payload development. For the Initiative,
Ariel drives space-related research across science, engineering, art,
and design. The Initiative charters an annually recurring cadence
of parabolic ights, sub-orbital, and orbital launch opportunities.
Ariel forges collaborations on this work with other MIT depart-
ments and space industry partners, all while mentoring Initiative
research projects and providing technical advice for all mission
deployments.
Ariel brings a humanist approach to her research at MIT with
undergraduate degrees in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy
from Yale University, as well as a Master’s in Distributed Systems
from the MIT Media Lab. Ariel’s prior work experience includes:
supersymmetry research and big data programming at the CERN
Particle Physics Laboratory; user-centered design and product de-
velopment at Microsoft Azure; microgravity research with NASA;
and Mars2020 rover hardware systems engineering at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Ariel’s work has been featured in WIRED
(March 2020 cover story), MIT Technology Review, Harvard Busi-
ness Review, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, CNN, NPR, IEEE
and AIAA proceedings, and more. Humanity stands on the cusp
of interplanetary civilization and space is our next, grand frontier.
This opportunity to design our interplanetary lives beckons to us,
and Ariel strives to bring our space exploration future to life.
2.4 Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes is a Professor with MIT’s Media Arts and Sciences Pro-
gram, which until recently, she served for as the Academic Head.
Additionally, Pattie runs the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces research
group, which aims to radically reinvent the human-machine ex-
perience. Coming from a background in articial intelligence and
human-computer interaction, she is particularly interested in the
topic of cognitive enhancement; How immersive and wearable sys-
tems can actively assist people with memory, attention, learning,
decision making, communication, and well-being. Pattie is the edi-
tor of three books, as well as serving as an editorial board member
and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences.
She has received several awards: Fast Company named her one
of 50 most inuential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as
one of the "100 Americans to watch for" in the year 2000; TIME
Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50
technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic
Forum honored her with the title "Global Leader for Tomorrow";
Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category
prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the "Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award" by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She
has also received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Univer-
siteit Brussel in Belgium, and her 2009 TED talk on "The 6th Sense
Device" is among the most-watched TED talks ever.
CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan Pataranutaporn and Sumini, et al.
2.5 Joseph Paradiso
Joseph Paradiso is the Alexander W. Dreyfoos (1954) Professor in
Media Arts and Sciences, where he serves as the Associate Aca-
demic Head and directs the Media Lab’s Responsive Environments
group, which explores how sensor networks augment and mediate
human experience, interaction, and perception. Paradiso worked as
a Tufts undergrad on precision inertial guidance systems at Draper
Lab, then completed his PhD in physics at MIT in 1981, while work-
ing with Prof. S.C.C. Ting’s group at CERN in Geneva. After two
years developing precision drift chambers at the Lab for High En-
ergy Physics at ETH in Zurich, he joined the NASA-aliated group
at Draper Laboratory, where his research encompassed spacecraft
control systems, image processing algorithms, underwater sonar,
and precision alignment sensors for large high-energy physics
detectors. He joined the Media Lab in 1994, where his current re-
search interests include wireless sensing systems, wearable and
body sensor networks, energy harvesting and power management
for embedded sensors, ubiquitous/pervasive computing and the In-
ternet of Things, human-computer interfaces, space-based systems,
and interactive music/media. He has written over 350 publications
and frequently lectures in these areas. In his spare time, he enjoys
designing/building electronic music synthesizers, composing elec-
tronic soundscapes, and seeking out edgy and unusual music while
traveling the world.
2.6 Melodie Yashar
Melodie is a design architect, technologist, and researcher. She is
the co-founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), a Se-
nior Research Associate with San Jose State University Research
Foundation at NASA Ames, and an Associate Researcher within
the UC Davis Center for Human/Robotics/Vehicle Integration and
Performance (HRVIP). Her research at NASA is with the Human
Computer Interaction Lab within the Human Systems Integration
Division at NASA Ames. As an associate within Space Exploration
Architecture, SEArch+ won top prize in both of NASA’s design so-
licitations for a Mars habitat (in 2015 and 2019, respectively) within
the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. The success of the team’s work
in NASA’s Centennial Challenge led to consultancy roles and collab-
orations with UTAS/Collins Aerospace, NASA Langley, and most
recently with ICON, NASA Marshall, and NASA’s Moon-to-Mars
Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies (MMPACT) ini-
tiative. Melodie is a professor at Art Center College of Design,
where she teaches the topic studio "Life on the Moon." Having come
from an interdisciplinary background, she appreciates those who
see research and design as a conuence of dierent elds—allowing
problem solving to become a more thoroughly collaborative exer-
cise.
2.7 Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger
Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger is an architect and researcher special-
izing in compact habitability design solutions for extreme envi-
ronments. She teaches and researches at the Vienna University
of Technology, and is director of the course "Space" at the Science
Academy in Lower Austria. She has worked on aerospace design and
research projects as PI, collaborator, manager, and initiator. As part
of her research in Habitability Design in Extreme Environments,
Sandra uses cross-program comparison and analysis of inhabited
isolated, conned, and extreme environments (ICEs) on Earth and
Space from a human perspective, as a basis for the systematic as-
sessment of current and future living and working environments
in space. Sandra acted as the principal investigator of the ‘HI-SEAS
Habitability Study’ during the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog
Simulation Missions from 2015 – 2018 and 2019 onward. Sandra
is a corresponding member of the International Academy of As-
tronautics (IAA), and Vice-chair of the AIAA Space Architecture
Technical Committee. The AIAA SATC plans to move her to full
Chair in 2022. She has published several scientic papers and is the
author of several books, including: "Architecture for Astronauts -
An Activity Based Approach" (Springer, 2011), "Space Architecture
Education for Engineers and Architects - Designing and Planning
Beyond Earth" (Springer, 2016, co-author O. Bannova), and "De-
signing for [Space] Habitability – New Solutions for Isolated and
Conned Environments" (Springer, 2020, co-author Sheryl Bishop).
2.8 Susanna Testa
Susanna Testa, PhD in Design, is Assistant Professor at the De-
sign Department of Politecnico di Milano. Her research focuses
on interaction and technological innovation within the eld of
fashion, as well as bench-marking state-of-the art initiatives, tech-
nologies, and products related to the fashion ecosystem. Being at
the forefront of pushing European academic initiatives, Susanna
is involved in administrating academic collaborations for the de-
velopment of Fashion-Tech with European multilateral projects
like Edu4FashionTech and FTalliance. Among academic activities,
Susanna lectures at the Bachelors level courses in: Jewellery and
Accessory Design, working primarily with emerging manufactur-
ing technologies; Fashion Illustration; Portfolio & Digital Brand-
ing (Politecnico di Milano). She is also didactic coordinator of the
Masters in Accessory Design and of the Masters in Fashion-Tech
(POLI.design). Susanna is part of the faculty for the Masters in Fash-
ion Direction: Brand & Product Management at Milano Fashion
Institute (consortium of Bocconi, Politecnico di Milano and Cat-
tolica universities). Along with academic activities, she is active as
freelancer illustrator and consultant designer with a focus on fash-
ion and accessories. Among her publications: "FashionTech. Body
Equipment, Digital Technologies and Interaction" (Universitas Stu-
diorum, 2019), "Jewellery Between Product and Experience: Luxury
in the Twenty-First Century" in "Sustainable Luxury and Crafts-
manship" (Springer, 2020) and "Fashion Tech Today" and "Future
Scenarios" in "Education for Fashion Tech. Design and Technologies
for Future Fashion Creatives" (Nielsen Book, 2020).
2.9 Marianna Obrist
Marianna Obrist is a Professor of Multisensory Interfaces at UCL.
Before joining UCL, she was head of the Sussex Computer Hu-
man Interaction (SCHI/’sky’) Lab at the School of Engineering and
Informatics at the University of Sussex. Her research ambition
is to establish touch, taste, and smell as modalities for human-
computer interaction (HCI). Her research is mainly supported by
an ERC starting grant. As part of her research, she developed a
novel scent-delivery technology that was exhibited at the World
Economic Forum (WEF) 2019 and 2020 in Davos. Supported by
SpaceCHI: Designing Human-Computer Interaction Systems for Space Exploration CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan
an ERC proof-of-concept, this technology is now commercialised
through OWidgets Ltd, a university start-up she co-founded in 2019.
Before joining Sussex, Marianna was a Marie Curie Fellow at New-
castle University. She was selected as the Young Scientist 2017 and
2018 to attend the WEF in China, and became an inaugural member
of the ACM Future of Computing Academy (ACM-FCA) in 2017.
More recently, Marianna was appointed as a Visiting Professor at
the Burberry Material Futures Research Group at RCA and spent
the summer of 2019 as a Visiting Professor at the HCI Engineering
Group at MIT CSAIL.
2.10 Dorit Donoviel
As director for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health
(TRISH), Dorit Donoviel, Ph.D., leads a $246M NASA-funded inno-
vation R&D program which sources, funds, and fosters disruptive
human health and performance solutions for astronauts traveling
in deep space. In her previous role as Deputy Chief Scientist of the
National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), Dr. Donoviel
led both domestic and international research programs that bridged
academic, industry, and government resources to deliver fast and
cost-eective tangible results. She is the recipient of multiple honors
including recognition from NASA and the NSBRI Pioneer Award.
A published research scientist and a frequently invited speaker, Dr.
Donoviel is Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology
and Chemical Biology and the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor
College of Medicine (BCM). She lectures to and mentors graduate
and medical students and advocates for science education for all
ages. Before joining BCM, she led a metabolism drug discovery
program at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals for 8 years. She serves as a
mentor and judge for healthcare-related startup companies at pitch
competitions with organizations and conferences such as SXSW-
Interactive, American Heart Association, Ignite Health, and AARP.
Dr. Donoviel is a die-hard Star Trek fan.
3 PRE-WORKSHOP PLANS
Our website is hosted at: http://spacechi.media.mit.edu/
We will distribute the workshop call through email, social me-
dia, and our website. Examples include: ACM SIGCHI mailing lists,
NASA mailing lists, MIT mailing lists and social media outlets, and
Facebook pages and Twitter. We will also reach out to researchers
in the area of aerospace engineering who may not have a back-
ground in HCI but are creating computing interfacing technologies
to support human life in space. Though this workshop focuses on
designing technology for space exploration, we will encourage au-
thors who may not have a background in, or experience working on,
space exploration to present their most futuristic ideas (e.g. papers
that show a vision about an interaction currently not implemented).
The submission portal will be accessed through our website. We are
planning the paper review timeline as follows: call out on December
15th, 2020; submission deadline on February 15th, 2021; notication
of acceptance by February 22th, 2021; and nal submissions due
on March 1st, 2021. We will host accepted papers on the workshop
website for participants and others to review.
Table 1: Proposed Workshop Schedule
Time Schedule Item
15 min Introduction
45 min Keynote Presentation
15 min Short Break
45 min Research Presentation
90 min Brainstorming
45 min Lunch Break
45 min Research Presentation
90 min Brainstorming
15 min Short Break
90 min Next Step and Ethical Discussion
15 min Closing
4 WORKSHOP STRUCTURE
Our one-day workshop will consist of a keynote lecture, research
presentations, lively discussion, and group brainstorming. We antic-
ipate 15-25 participants. The workshop will be held online via Zoom.
Accepted papers up to 4 pages long- will be hosted on our website
prior to the workshop for participants and conference attendee to
access. During the workshop, accepted authors will present their
papers.
Following research presentations, small focus groups will be
assigned to breakout sessions where they will design short user
scenarios related to an HCI technology intervention or counter-
measure. The topics could address the potential of an emerging
technology solution in a spaceight context, a particular form factor,
or could be used as an opportunity to highlight a human-centered
problem requiring further research. Groups will design a "day in
the life" narrative showing a scenario of use for the technology,
intervention, or countermeasure. Groups will be encouraged to sto-
ryboard interactions visually, or to act out the scenarios in a "skit"
format. Successes, failures, and future potential of the narrative
scenarios will be deliberated in the discussion.
Participants will also engage in an activity to work collabora-
tively and create a visual research map of CHI for space exploration
in an online collaborative platform, "Miro". During the group brain-
storming, participants will use post-it notes on Miro to identify
opportunities and produce road maps for how these trends may
change the future. We will conclude with a reective discussion
on the future of space CHI and identifying directions for further
collaboration.
The day’s structure is in table 1.
5 POST-WORKSHOP PLANS
We plan to post photos and videos of the workshop on our website
and social media during and after the workshop. We will encourage
participants who have met through the workshop to submit arti-
cles together and to discuss other participants’ articles on the web
interface. Our intention is that workshop participants will become
co-authors to foster community and collaboration.
CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan Pataranutaporn and Sumini, et al.
6 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Space travel and becoming an interplanetary species have always
been part of humanity’s greatest imaginings. Research in space
exploration helps us advance our knowledge in the fundamental
sciences, and challenges us to design new technologies and to create
new industries for space, all while prompting us to answer the most
fundamental questions about our place in the Universe. However,
keeping a human healthy, happy and productive in space is one
of the most challenging aspects of current space programs. Our
biological body, which evolved in the Earth’s specic environment,
is not designed to survive by itself in extreme conditions such as
high radiation or low gravity (among other threats). Therefore, re-
searchers have been developing dierent types of human-computer
interfacing systems (HCI), which support a human body’s physical
and mental performance in space. These Space HCI projects range
from exoskeletons for supporting humans in low-gravity, to virtual
and augmented reality systems for interplanetary exploration, and
even zero-gravity musical interfaces for entertainment during the
space mission.
With advancements in aerospace engineering and the democ-
ratized access to space through aerospace tech companies such as
SpaceX and Blue Origin, space research is becoming more plausible
and accessible. The dropping costs of space launches and cubesats
enables new interdisciplinary research in art, design, science, and
engineering in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and beyond. What was once
an exclusive, expensive, and narrowly serious pursuit is now evolv-
ing to include a vast array of possibilities. Thus, there is now an
exciting opportunity for researchers in HCI to contribute to the
great endeavor of space exploration by designing new types of
interactive systems and computer interfaces which can support
human living in space and beyond.
We invite researchers from both academia and industry to sub-
mit a short position paper in the theme discussed above. We will
evaluate submissions on t, ability to stimulate discussion, and
contribution to the future of HCI. Our website includes examples
of past work in this area to help inspire and inform position papers.
Papers should be maximum of 4 pages, and should be submitted
in the CHI Extended Abstracts format. The submission deadline is
February 15th, 2021.
At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend
the workshop and all participants must register for at least one day
of the conference. We will host accepted papers on the workshop
website for participants and others to review. Submission can be
accessed through our website: http://spacechi.media.mit.edu/.
Suggested topics / areas:
•On-body/Wearable Technology for Space Health
•Human-Robot Interaction for Deep Space Mission
•Interfaces for Human Expression in Space
•Trust within Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
•Cognitive load and Human Performance Issues
•Computer-supported Cooperative Work
•Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality
•Smart Vehicle and Habitat
•Digital Fabrication for Space Mission
REFERENCES
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[2]
Manfred E Clynes and Nathan S Kline. 1995. Cyborgs and space. The cyborg
handbook (1995), 29–34.
[3]
Sands Fish and Nicole L’Huillier. 2018. Telemetron: a musical instrument for
performance in zero gravity. In Proceedings of NIME Conference, Blacksburg, USA.
315–317.
[4] Scott S Fisher. 1986. Virtual interface environment. (1986).
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Marsha Freeman. 2000. Challenges of human space exploration. Springer Science
& Business Media.
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Kaj Helin, Timo Kuula, Carlo Vizzi, Jaakko Karjalainen, and Alla Vovk. 2018. User
experience of augmented reality system for astronaut’s manual work support.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI 5 (2018), 106.
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Benjamin Nuernberger, Robert Tapella, Samuel-Hunter Berndt, So Young Kim,
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Astronauts and Beyond. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 40, 1 (2020),
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[8]
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