Each masters student at the Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interactions Institute participates in a rigorous 8-month capstone project, working in teams as consultants for major corporate clients. Each team communicates directly with their client, conducting research, synthesizing findings, producing deliverables and ultimately creating and testing a working prototype.

Team Kairos is proud to be the ninth in a line of illustrious partnerships between NASA and the HCII. In somewhat dire straights since the retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA has once again called upon the only institute up to the job of reimagining the way that astronauts perform scheduled procedures under unprecedented new conditions.

Kairos Goes to Space

After a thorough literature review, our first stop was the Johnson Space Center, where astronauts are trained and where mission control watches over the ISS. Here, we learned the real business of how space is run.

The Next Best Thing

As you might expect, it's really, really hard to talk to astronauts, even at JSC. As such, we interviewed NASA personnel and professionals in various analagous domains (such as surgery and stage management) as we strove to understand procedure execution and support.

Blast Off at the Speed of Light

After months of trips, competitive analyses, interviews and a few days spent literally chasing astronauts around campus, we launched our synthesis sessions.

Envisioning the Future of the Future

Our team will be spending the summer at the NASA Ames base in Mountain View, CA, developing visions like these into functional prototypes, culminating in testing done on actual NASA analogue missions.