I built a space travel calculator using Vanilla JavaScript
I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km/s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km/s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the…
In plain words
This space travel calculator measures age in kilometers rather than years by calculating distance traveled through the Milky Way. It uses the galaxy's velocity relative to the cosmic microwave background (~600km/s) to create a sense of cosmic motion, deliberately simplifying the physics for dramatic effect. Built as a single HTML file with vanilla JavaScript and no dependencies, it features a canvas-based starfield optimized to run smoothly on mobile devices without performance stuttering.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km/s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km/s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the star objects to stop the garbage collector from causing stutters on mobile. Let me know if the physics makes you angry or if the stars run smooth on your device.
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