SpaceBuzz: Creating Ambassadors for planet Earth

Hundreds of school in Europe and the United States have signed up, some 140,000 children have already experienced SpaceBuzz, and a team at Tilburg University is driving the science behind it on the topics of learning, virtual reality and awe. It is an innovative educational program aimed at introducing primary school education to the subjects of science and technology in the context of sustainability in a way that is playful and easy to learn. The program has been developed in line with the career path of a real astronaut. After children pass the pre-flight astronaut training, a 15-meter long rocket arrives at the school to virtually launch children into space. When children sit down in the rocket and put virtual reality headsets on, their chairs move hydraulically, and the rocket is launched into space under the guidance of a virtual reality embodiment of an actual astronaut. Finally, in a post-flight training at the children’s school, children give press conferences to friends and family and tell them about their experience in space. This combination of virtual reality, serious games, intelligent tutoring systems, and learning analytics drives the future of education.

Scientific impact

We investigate the effect of interactive virtual reality technologies on learning gains, and the Overiew Effect in the SpaceBuzz program to map out the future of immersive interactive education. In a series of scientific publication we have shown how awe and the experience of the Overview Effect yield learning gains in school children.

Societal impact

With a visit to NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as a presence at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, the SpaceBuzz rocket ship has been experienced by some 60 astronauts and some 2,000 international visitors. In the words of Iranian-American astronaut Anousheh Ansari: “I think it should be something that every human being, young and old, gets to see. Of course children will really enjoy it and will take this experience to heart, but I think we should take it to the UN and make all the world leaders do the same thing”.

SpaceBuzz, spearheaded by two-time European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut André Kuipers, and our research, has been featured in national and international newspapers, national and international television, and has received several prestigious awards for its work. It is now expanding to many more countries, impacting younger generations, policy makers, educators and researchers around the globe.

Scientific publications

Louwerse, M. M., Postma, M., Van Limpt-Broers, A., de Back, T. T., Tinga, A. M., & Horden, M. (2020). Beyond the frontiers of education: How immersive media changes the way we learn. ITU Journal: ICT Discoveries, 3(1).

van Limpt-Broers, H. A. T., Postma, M., & Louwerse, M. M. (2025). Measuring transformative virtual reality experiences in children’s drawings. Memory & Cognition, 53(1), 96-115.

van Limpt-Broers, H. A. T., Postma, M., van Weelden, E., Pratesi, S., & Louwerse, M. M. (2024). Neurophysiological evidence for the overview effect: a virtual reality journey into space. Virtual Reality, 28(3), 140.

van Limpt-Broers, H. A. T., Postma, M., & Louwerse, M. M. (2020). Creating ambassadors of planet Earth: The Overview Effect in K12 education. Frontiers in Psychology, 11.

Awards

Two golden Spin Awards in the categories Innovation and User Experience (2020)
(https://www.adformatie.nl/digital-transformation-tech/grand-spin-award-naar-albert-heijn-en-samhoud).
Two Webby Awards (both jury and people’s choice; out of 13k applications from over 70 countries, SpaceBuzz competed with organizations such as National Geographic, NASA and BBC) (2020)
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21263445/2020-webby-awards-winners-lil-nas-x-nasa-jon-krasinski.

Honors

SpaceBuzz was invited to the International Astronautical Conference in Washington DC, where it featured together with Moonlander of Blue Origin.

SpaceBuzz was the only organization allowed to be present at the Planetary Convention of Space Explorers in Houston.

SpaceBuzz is one of the very few organizations that the Association of Space Explorers (a non-profit organization with a membership composed of people who have completed at least one Earth orbit in space) has endorsed.

Louwerse was asked to give the 2019 keynote at the International Telecommunication Union conference in Atlanta, a specialized agency of the United Nations.

Videos