Open Source Platforms
SEI makes opportunities available for researchers across the Institute to deploy cutting-edge research in world-class aerospace environments. In parallel, we offer global open calls for our flight missions and release open source platforms, tools, course materials, and outreach programs to reach out beyond the bounds of MIT. We hope to beckon, inspire, and empower, and welcome many of our fellow dreamers into the fold of space exploration.
Lunar Open Architecture
Lunar Open Project (LOA) is the first dynamic, living, and open roadmap for lunar exploration, powered by an evolving database that captures and coalesces current and future missions for lunar exploration. By tracking developments around the world in technologies, science, industry, and policy, we hope to cultivate a participatory community to engage in collective decision making to reach shared objectives in lunar exploration.
Interplanetary Cookbook
Food doesn’t just provide nourishment—it opens our imagination, engages our senses (see, smell, taste, touch, sound), and contains cultural heritage. How can we design new and unforeseen food products and systems that extend beyond basic sustenance? An open source collection of recipes and zero-g kitchenware for future life in outer space, the Interplanetary Cookbook promotes the beginning of a food culture that fosters deeper relationships with new worlds.
Astronaut Ethnography
Astronaut Ethnography: Human Perspectives on Life in Space is an online educational resource that aims to democratize insights from spacefaring humans about life in space. This web database presents a curated collection of human perspectives on life in space from a diverse group of astronauts, cosmonauts, and spaceflight participants. As space increasingly opens to more individuals, agencies, and institutions, this resource will contribute human-centered and experiential knowledge to the body of existing foundational research on human health, psychology, and technical innovation.