EXCEL-erators| Breakthrough
Awards & Nominations
EXCEL-erators has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Breakthrough
SpaceJIC
Summary
Our project-SpaceJIC is a platform that enables users to choose their preferences for a space destination and way of travelling. Upon their decision, a visualization and the time needed to reach the final destination are provided. It is an interactive way to show people that the existing ways of space travel are insufficient and that the need for new more advanced spaceships is huge. Our website is a futuristic combination of Airbnb and Booking where people can find their escape plan or their cosmic voyage.
How We Addressed This Challenge
The imminent climate crisis, a more dangerous global pandemic or the ever-present threat of nuclear war are putting our presence on Earth at risk. Humanity will be facing a lot of hard decisions in the near future when it comes to our survival, and one of them might have to be the decision to leave Earth. The search for habitable planets and moons is on-going and there have been multiple possible candidates. NASA and its partner agencies have been working on plans for futuristic spaceships that will move at speeds close to the speed of light.
Inspired by the previous missions initiated by NASA and its partners, our team, EXCEL-erators, decided upon creating an interactive website which serves as a platform where users can choose the living conditions on the potential planet or satellite for inhabiting. Upon those decision our program will give them the most suitable planet for the individuals' needs, offering all the possible ways of transportation needed to reach their surfaces and providing a visualization of the journey. After that the program gives the most suitable option for the individual's needs. Besides that, the website portrays the characteristics of the possible habitable planets and a throughout description of the space vehicles, which also serves as an encyclopedia for all the knowledge-seekers visiting our website.
This is the link to the website: https://space-jic.000webhostapp.com/index.html
We plan to use the NASA's exoplanet archive database of all the possible habitable terrestrial objects and include them on our website. Besides that, there will be more criteria in the process of choosing the user's preferences. That way, the users will have even broader range of opportunities.
We also hope to get an access to the NASA's Eyes computer program and include its data in our website in order to provide a more vivid presentation of the exoplanets and their properties.
How We Developed This Project
Our Earth is facing some challenges that are putting the survival of the humankind at risk. As scientist propose we have less than 10 years to fight the global climate change. Hence, our team proposed a plan B in case something happens to Earth. We are inspired by the travel agencies, like AIRbnb, Booking, Uber, that allow you to choose your travel destination.
Using the information about some possible habitable exoplanets translated into code languages- html, CSS and JavaScript- our team created the booking platform for space travel.
The biggest challenge our team faced was finding enough accurate facts about the living conditions on some planets outside our solar system, that will help the users chose their new home. Besides that, we chose to code the real website instead of making a demo version, so the time we had to finish it was our biggest enemy. However, with dedicated and hardworking teammates we accomplished completing the website.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We used data NASA Earth Observatory to understand the threat of climate change and the short time period we have to find solutions for it. In our search for habitable terrestrial objects we used data mostly collected from TESS and Kepler Missions and we included information from the database from the NASA's exoplanet archive to present important facts that will influence the users' decision for their second home. Moreover, we used the spaceships speeds provided by the space agencies and the distance between the Earth and the particular satellite or planet in order to create the algorithm that calculates the time needed to reach one's final destination.
Data & Resources
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7423/teegardens-star-b/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7424/teegardens-star-c/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1584/discovery-alert-new-twin-planets-prompt-comparisons-to-earth/
https://www.nasa.gov/tess-transiting-exoplanet-survey-satellite
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/overview/index.html
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_info.html
https://www.esa.int/esearch?q=europa
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/gj_436_b/