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In Search of Space
Humans are driven to explore the unknown, with space leading that journey. As nations and private companies push boundaries, space missions have steadily increased. This data visualization highlights every mission from 1957 to 2020, showcasing the countries involved, mission outcomes, and the evolution of space exploration. Explore the story of the space race!

Pain Points
User research uncovered several challenges with the data visualization. Participants found the layout unintuitive for eye movement, the font size too small for easy readability, and the language overly complex, making it harder to connect with viewers.

Opportunities
The feedback highlighted opportunities to improve the design by refining the layout for better visual flow, increasing font size for readability, and simplifying the language for accessibility. These changes would enhance the overall experience, making the data visualization more engaging and informative for users.
Image of a spacecraft floating in space, captured against the backdrop of Earth’s atmosphere. The spacecraft appears in the foreground, with Earth’s cloud patterns visible below, emphasizing the vastness of space and the technological achievement of space exploration.
This project dives into the history of space missions from 1957 to 2020, offering insights into the total number of missions, leading countries, mission and rocket status, and costs involved. The dataset, sourced from Kaggle, includes key details such as company names, locations, mission descriptions, and expenses.
Create an engaging data visualization that provides essential information about space missions to viewers of all age groups.
An open sketchbook showing an early draft of a radial data visualization concept. The hand-drawn diagram represents space missions over time, with years labeled along the curve and symbols representing different missions or countries. The sketch serves as a rough blueprint for the eventual detailed data visualization project.
I created a rough draft of my data visualization and tested it with participants from diverse backgrounds to gather feedback. This helped me view the project from different perspectives and make improvements based on their insights. The feedback was crucial in refining the final design.
• The layout could be more intuitive for eye movement.
• Font size was too small for readability.
• Simplifying the language could improve viewer connection.
The idea behind this project was to create a data visualization poster that viewers could keep as a collectible. The goal was to capture their attention, spark curiosity, and hold their interest long enough to absorb the entire story of space missions. This visualization celebrates the remarkable progress we’ve made since the first space launch in 1957, honoring the human race’s dedication to space exploration.
A detailed data visualization poster titled “In Search of Space” showcases space missions from 1957 to 2020. The upper half features a radial timeline representing mission activity by country, color-coded by status (active, failed, retired, upcoming). The bottom section includes various graphs displaying the number of missions, mission success rates, money spent, and rocket statuses, along with visual comparisons of countries involved in space missions. The design highlights humanity’s journey in space exploration, with clear, data-driven insights presented in a visually engaging manner.
This visualization uses unique icons for each country, which can be identified through the legend. Colors represent rocket status: blue for active, yellow for retired, red for failed, and outlined for upcoming missions. As users move away from the center, they travel back in time, with the visualization fading to focus on the present. Months are wrapped around the circle, divided by a centerline to distinguish the first and second halves of each month, helping viewers estimate the timing of space missions.
Guide on how to read the space mission data visualization. Icons represent different countries involved in space missions, such as the USA, China, and Russia, while colors indicate the status of the missions: blue for active, red for failed, yellow for retired, and outlined for upcoming missions. The circular layout represents months, with a centerline dividing each month into two halves. As you move away from the center, you travel back in time, with radial distances marking decades.Radial data visualization of global space missions from 1957 to 2020, centered around an image of Earth. The circular design displays space missions organized by month, with color-coded icons representing mission status: blue for active, red for failed, yellow for retired, and outlined for upcoming missions. The further from the center, the earlier the mission, with a timeline that fades into the past. The visualization provides a clear, engaging overview of the evolution of space missions over the decades.
For this visualization, I highlighted the top five countries in space exploration, showcasing the number of missions they’ve conducted since 1957. A bar chart allows users to easily see which countries are leading and which have faced more challenges, including failed missions. To add more depth, a line chart illustrates the year-by-year progress of each country’s space efforts. This provides a clear and engaging way for users to compare different nations’ space missions over time and see how their contributions have evolved.
Data visualization comparing countries with the most space missions. The left side features a bar chart showing successful (blue) and failed (red) missions for Russia, USA, Europe, China, and Japan. The right side includes a line chart displaying the number of space missions per year from 1960 to 2020, highlighting the progression of space exploration by country. The visual provides an easy way to compare both total missions and the success rate of each nation’s space program.
The line chart in this visualization shows how much money has been spent on space missions over the years, highlighting peaks and drops. Notably, spending has been decreasing since 2010. The second chart compares average spending by country, leading to an interesting insight: despite Russia conducting the most space missions, it spends significantly less than the USA. This visualization helps viewers see the financial side of space exploration, sparking curiosity about how spending relates to mission success and frequency across different countries.
Two charts showing the average money spent on space missions. The left side features a line chart representing spending trends over the years, highlighting peaks and dips in funding from 1964 to 2020. The right side displays a bar chart comparing the average money spent by countries on space missions, with the USA leading at $208.8 million, followed by Russia and Europe. The visual helps illustrate financial investments in space exploration and provides insight into how different countries allocate resources to their space programs.
This visualization helps users understand the number of launches by country, which is different from space missions. A mission might belong to one country but be launched from another, making launch locations critical. The size of the circles in the graphic represents the number of launches—larger circles indicate more launches, while smaller ones represent fewer. This provides insight into which countries have the most favorable conditions for space launches and which have the least.
Bubble chart visualizing the number of space launches per country. Larger circles represent countries with the most launches, like Russia (1,395), the USA (1,348), and Kazakhstan (694), while smaller circles represent countries with fewer launches, such as Kenya (9), Australia (6), and Brazil (3). This visual comparison allows viewers to quickly identify which countries are the most active in space launches.Comprehensive data visualization of space missions from 1957 to 2020, titled In Search of Space. The poster includes various charts, such as bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts, to represent key information like the number of space missions, mission status, rocket status, money spent, and launches per country. The visualization compares different countries’ involvement in space exploration and provides insights into successes, failures, and financial investments over time, using engaging visuals to convey the information.