By Kohava Mendelsohn, OpenSpace Science Communication Intern
For this year’s National Engineers Week, I sat down with three of our developers, Alex, Malin, and Micah from the OpenSpace Project. These engineers shared with me what sparked their interests in STEM, the paths that led them to the OpenSpace team, and their favorite features of the software. Read on to hear about the origin story of OpenSpace, animating the James Webb Space Telescope, and how engineering is like magic.
Meet Alex Bock
Development Lead at OpenSpace
With a major in computer science and a minor in astronomy, Alex knew how to pilot a spellbound audience through the far reaches of space during his planetarium shows at the Visualization Center C in Norrköping, Sweden. He loved guiding visitors through the solar system, the Milky Way, and beyond. His only issue? The software he was stuck with.
A programmer himself, Alex knew exactly what changes he would make to fly through space in smoother, more interesting ways. “It's like I could see, oh, if you just tweak these things and those things the experience of driving would be a lot more interesting,” he says.
He thought to himself, “How hard can this really be?”
So over the next three months, in his free time, Alex began work on the foundation for OpenSpace. That’s the beauty of computer science, he says. You want to create something, so you ask yourself: Is this possible? “The answer in computer science almost always is: Sure! We can do whatever we want.”
From Alex’s early prototype, OpenSpace grew and grew, bringing on more people, and developing into more than he ever dreamed. “It’s unreal, “ he says, “occasionally I have to pinch myself.” He realizes how much the software has grown when he sees other users post videos they created in OpenSpace, and he has no idea how they’ve done it. “Giving people the tools to create new experiences” truly brings him joy, he explained to me.
As lead developer, Alex manages a team of computer scientists and engineers from multiple time zones, helps users navigate OpenSpace and still runs planetarium shows for the public. But his favorite part is coding. He gets to witness the whole design process: dreaming up a new feature, helping to add it to OpenSpace, and then knowing it’s out in the world and being used. Going from “this didn't exist” to “someone is using it,” is extremely rewarding for him.
When he’s not working, Alex loves playing video games, tabletop role playing games, and hanging out with his new cat, Nova — which has been taking up a lot of his spare time.
Even after years of working on OpenSpace, Alex is still thrilled by the universe. He loves exoplanets, and encourages people to explore exoplanet systems in OpenSpace. He thinks that exoplanets are “going to be the next big wow factor that humanity goes through.” Alex believes we’re going to discover alien life in the universe within our lifetimes. “The really cool part about astronomy,” he says, “is the moment you have anything that is possible, there are unfathomable times that it has happened.”
So go out and explore! Maybe you’ll be the one to find the next secret of the universe.
Meet Malin Ejdbo
Software Engineer at OpenSpace
Growing up in Sweden, Malin had her sights set on a career in science or veterinary medicine. But after stepping into the Linköping University planetarium, Malin’s interests evolved. On a tour of the cosmos that immersed her in a sea of stars, Malin shared with me the inspiration she felt. It was at that moment that she knew she wanted to become an engineer.
Malin completed her degree in Media Technology and Engineering, where she learned computer programming. The logical patterns made sense to her. For her, nothing matched setting out to solve a problem, getting absorbed into the flow of coding, and coming out with a solution. “I really like the days when I can just sit and write code and it flows,” she says.
Malin knew that she wanted to keep coding for her Master’s degree, but she wanted to work in a new environment to continue to learn and explore. Then, she discovered OpenSpace. She was drawn to its open-source ideals and the structure of the code underneath the hood. “The engine for OpenSpace was the perfect thing for me,” she recalls. It had a similar structure to a language she’d worked on at a summer job, but was different enough to be new and exciting.
While it was the coding that brought her to the project, she’s now grown to love astronomy as well. “There's so much existing out there and it's interesting to know about it and communicate it to other people,” she says. Her favorite aspect of the software is demonstrating the immense scale of the known universe by zooming out to the Cosmic Microwave Background and then returning back to Earth.“You realize how small we are and how vulnerable our planet is,” she reflects, emphasizing the importance of our home in the vastness of the cosmos.
During her time as an engineer at OpenSpace, Malin’s proudest accomplishment is adding 3D animations to the program. Now, presenters can show the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, how it unfolded itself, and what it looks like in orbit, all in OpenSpace. “It was one of the first things that I really thought I contributed in a major way to the project,” she says. Soon, the code she created might be used to animate rovers on the Moon, to visualize how they actually travel across the Moon’s surface.
When she’s not programming, Malin loves playing video games. These days, you'll find her diving into Baldur's Gate 3 "almost every day" as soon as she returns home. She enjoys adventure and role-playing games, especially those with expansive, uncharted realms waiting to be uncovered.
For those just starting out in OpenSpace, Malin has some advice: “the best way to find everything is just to explore.” Don’t worry about making a mistake or breaking something, because you can always reset your program and everything will be back. The universe is out there, waiting to be discovered.
Meet Micah Acinapura
Software Integration Engineer at OpenSpace
According to Micah, there are three exciting things about being an engineer: The joy of solving a problem, being able to make machines do new and sensational things, and being able to shape the world. His favorite engineering projects feel like magic, he says, and an engineer is a modern-day magician.
When Micah applied to college, his major was actually English. He’d always been obsessed with computers, but he hadn’t connected it to a career path — it had just been his hobby. It wasn’t until as a sophomore, when he took an introduction to computer science course, that everything clicked.
Working as an engineer and happy with his current job, Micah declined his initial job offer to work at OpenSpace. Then he was invited to the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History and got to experience it for himself. He saw how OpenSpace wasn’t just a visualization tool, but it was a way to tell stories. It was magical. “I want this to be my job every day,” he thought to himself, “this sounds awesome!” He accepted the job the next day.
Micah’s favorite computer projects are immersive ones where he gets to use technology to make people feel things. At OpenSpace, he feels that excitement every day. He loves getting to use real data from NASA to create simulations of the universe as it actually appears. His favorite part of his job is helping scientists visualize state of the art, never-before-seen data. It’s like being let in on a “secret of the universe,” he says.
Some of those secrets you can experience for yourself in OpenSpace. If you apply the right layer over Mars, Micah explains, you can observe the tracks that the Mars rovers have left behind. He also recommends launching OpenSpace in the Gaia profile, and looking at the night sky with all the stars visible. We can only see a tiny fraction of all stars from our backyards, but there are billions more to discover. “When I show it to people, it's always mind blowing,” he says, “you turn [the stars] on, and it looks like daytime.”
Micah’s best piece of advice for exploring OpenSpace is to “bring someone along for the ride.” It’s meant to be a platform for telling stories. So bring a friend, he says, and show the universe to each other. That’s when you’ll really start to unlock the magic.
The OpenSpace development team at the American Museum of Natural History. From left: Elon Olsson, Gene Payne, Alex Bock, Malin Ejdbo, Ylva Selling, Emma Broman, Elias Elmquist, Adam Rohdin, and Micah Acinapura.
Finally, a huge shoutout to all the dedicated developers at OpenSpace! Their tireless efforts are the driving force behind the continuous improvement of the software. It's their commitment that ensures OpenSpace keeps evolving.
Interested in diving deeper into the world of engineering? Check out other Engineers Week posts and events to learn more about the impact engineers make, why they’re essential, and how you can become an engineer.
Curious about OpenSpace? Join our Slack workspace! There you'll find Alex, Malin, and Micah ready to provide the answers you're looking for.
