Mixed reality architecture in space habitats

As the International Space Station (ISS) takes shape, the prospect of living in space for prolonged periods becomes a reality for a greater number of individuals. Crewmembers aboard the ISS will live alongside each other for months, in confined spaces, under difficult conditions. Living in a hermetic environment, with other individuals from a variety of cultural backgrounds, will inevitably cause stresses. The living environment must meet a variety of needs in order to be conducive to the well being of the individual and the crew community.

Earth is the only habitable planet for life form. Life started to develop on earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago. But human beings appeared on earth about 2.5 million years ago. For a good future of mankind it is important to ensure the food safety; energy safety; safety from global warming, sea level rise, another ice age, asteroids and other space component which can create partial or full mass destruction on earth. According to known facts we are alone in the solar system. But there are planets which can be developed into habitable human colonies. Living outside the earth is a challenge to human kind whether in space or in a distant planet. In micro or less gravity environment we are neither adopted nor comfortable for many issues like temperature, air pressure, dryness, radiation etc. To make those habitats livable, an architect can contribute by designing an efficient and comfortable functional space to accommodate the researches. This study will help to understand the architectural attributes of International Space Station and other ongoing different design concepts of human habitation modules or colonies which will contribute in determining the architectural features which should be considered while designing the outer space or other planetary surface human habitats. The main focus of this study is the architectural features of the interior space which influences the psycho-physiological well-being of the researchers. In terms of human centered design logic, in long duration space missions, colors, light and interior decor must have among their purposes: psycho-physiological well-being, orientation, and supportiveness for all activities. It is therefore necessary to recall, through stimulating elements, the “normality” in confined artificial environments. Physical and psychological conditions can be improved featuring variety and natural variations occurring in time according to the principle of natural design. The architects can organize these confined spaces in an effective space. For these reason the need for their involvement stemmed from the push to extend space mission durations and address the needs of astronauts including but beyond minimum survival needs. In the future the space will be human kind’s main destination for energy, habitation, tourism, industries etc. These features will help to increase the efficiency of the astronauts and decrease the effect of long term space missions. It is therefore necessary to design a better environment with the use of colour, light, art and activity spaces which will create an adaptive space within a confined artificial environment.

Acta Astronautica, 2008

With the renewed interest in a sustained human presence beyond low-earth orbit, habitation in space, on planets and on moons is an area that requires re-evaluation in terms of mission and habitat design-there is a need for a paradigmatic move from a design focus on short-term LEO missions to that of long-term missions in LEO and beyond. We claim that a design lock-in may have occurred over the last 50 years which will need concerted effort to be unlocked and realigned to suit the emerging long-term mission paradigm. In this paper we explore some of the issues and possible ways of infusing relevant insights into the space habitat design approach by seeking to bridge lacunae in both the design process and training of the next generation space design workforce. As early career researchers we explore these issues in a moderate way and with limited resources, through an exploratory design workshop, organized under the aegis of the Aurora Programme, with the aim of exploring multidisciplinary design and a view to understanding the potential benefits of interdisciplinary approaches and possible gaps in the current space design paradigm. We touch the tip of a very large iceberg, but close the paper with first round recommendations for further exploration within the space design community and to be supported by national agencies.

Theoretical Issues in Ergonomic Sciences , 2014

Astronauts report certain experiences that can be classified as awe and wonder when looking out of their space station or shuttle portals at two different stimuli: the earth and deep space. Based on these reports, it was of interest to further investigate those types of experiences by using a mixed-reality environment resembling an International Space Station workstation designed to expose subjects to simulated stimuli of the earth and deep space. The study is multidisciplinary, involving simulation construction, physiological assessment, psychological testing, textual analysis, and phenomenological interviews. The goal was to induce in the average person the experiences and responses of the astronauts. Preliminary results show promise for using a virtual/mixed-reality environment in a laboratory when assessing cognitive/affective experiences, such as awe and wonder, found in a real-world context.

Acta Astronautica

2012

One possible next leap in human space exploration for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a mission to a near Earth asteroid (NEA). In order to achieve such an ambitious goal, a space habitat will need to accommodate a crew of four for the 380-day round trip. The Human Spaceflight Architecture Team (HAT) developed a conceptual design for such a habitat. The team identified activities that would be performed inside a long-duration, deep space habitat, and the capabilities needed to support such a mission. A list of seven functional activities/capabilities was developed: individual and group crew care, spacecraft and mission operations, subsystem equipment, logistics and resupply, and contingency operations. The volume for each activity was determined using NASA STD-3001 and the companion Human Integration Design Handbook (HIDH). Although, the sum of these volumes produced an over-sized spacecraft, the team evaluated activity frequency and duration to identify ...

2013

The design of habitable spacecraft modules in the past was viewed as an engineering problem. As missions increased in duration, the issue of liveability gradually became an issue of habitability, opening the way for architects to contribute to the design of a functional interior. This paper presents an emerging field in the cross-section of design and technology titled sensponsive architecture. The term sensponsive is a combination of the words sense and responsive. While a responsive design approach is applied to help a structure react to environmental changes, a sensponsive approach is user-centered, employing the same technology to ensure the spatial and psychological comfort of the user. It is the product of a flexible, transformable, technology-mediated architecture with intelligent systems seamlessly incorporated into the created environment, in this case the interior of a spacecraft module, to exhibit a programmed behavior in direct relation to the human activity within. The activity is evaluated through three diagnostic layers, the spatial layer, the perceptual layer and the experiential layer. The sensponsive configuration is based upon two active systems, the Activity Evaluation System (AES) and the Response System (RS) which act in combination by directing subtle spatial (volume, surface) and ambient (audio, visual, olfactory, haptic) changes when necessary. It acts discreetly, firstly by understanding the conditions and the context in which they take place and then by responding to them accordingly with sense. A sensponsive spacecraft environment aims to provide beneficial living conditions for the astronauts and address spatial qualities along with activity-related issues that emerge from prolonged isolation and confinement.

2019

Throughout the long run of civilization history, from its very early ages until today, humanity anchored itself to the earth with every means. The aim of territorial possessing of the human has been pursued towards wondering the limits of the given terrain on Earth and even moving beyond of it, to the universal terms by revealing what is beyond. It is evident from the findings of the earlier civilizations that the astronomers were keen to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the cosmic relations to understand what is there beyond our own planet. Doubtlessly, their research developed substantially since then, but the never-ending interest and curiosity remained as the essential motivation behind this progress. This curiosity gradually enabled humanity to explore further. More, whereas the result, people walked on the Moon, created living spaces on orbit and currently planning colonization on Mars. Today, space exploration again has become a widely-discussed subject, especially with the reemergence of new private investors in aerospace industry. As scientists continue researching variety of subjects, such as habitable terrains and new energy sources for humankind to utilize, space enthusiasts are awaiting an opportunity to arise so that they can also have astronaut-like experiences. As scientific experiments, space trips have been always mission focused. From 1960s to this day, all official flights that have been conducted were mission flights; thus, vehicle interiorities were built up according to their purposes. The concept for taking non-professionals to space have been attempted before, but due to various reasons, including political conflicts and technical problems they have not succeeded in a sustainable way. On the bright side, all these attempts proved that a market for space tourism exists amongst wealthy citizens. Currently, private companies like Virgin Galactic started to have bigger impact in space tourism industry. Alongside their space plane SpaceShipTwo’s promising test flights and SpaceX’s touristic route announcement for their upcoming space ship, makes it seem like leisure type of space mobility is in fact inevitable. Right at this point as space industry is moving towards a civilian-friendly route, an analysis about leisure type of interiorities in space mobility has been thought to be relevant. Hence, this thesis aims to fill a gap in literature by investigating the expected purpose shift from mission to leisure in space mobility and generate some arguments that might help future designers and researchers to have a structured research on the subject. The thesis begins with a descriptive cross reading on the notion of interiority and its relevance with mission and leisure type of mobility. The first part consists of examinations on the notion of interiority as an abstract quality and investigates the notion systematically. Then by dismantling the notion, it discusses the objectivity of some aspects that defines interiority and by analyzing the literature, it creates its own aspects that define objective parts of interiority. Besides, an interiority analysis has been conducted based on two different vehicles, which represent mission and leisure type of mobility to develop a structure for further parts of this thesis. Narrow timeline and resources on the subject limited the researcher to only visual data analysis. In the second part, the notion of interiority has been investigated within space mobility and its mission and leisure type of interiors. This part consists of information on microgravity environment, space mobility, mission type of interiorities and speculations of leisure type of interiorities. The part first starts off with microgravity environment and space mobility to provide reader with enough knowledge about this unusual environment that is being discussed. Then it moves on mission type of mobility and analysis on these interiorities. Since all of the interiors that has been built so far has been built for mission purposes, by creating a comparative analysis with mission type of interiors of Earth, this part differentiates the basic needs of microgravity interiors and mission type of space interiors. Lastly, the part investigates the possible needs for upcoming shift towards leisure type of interiorities in space by cross referencing the analysis that has been conducted before. In conclusion, this thesis investigates the notion of interiority within space mobility. By creating an objective analysis where it analyses two Earth based interiors and several space-based interiors, it aims to make an inference about the expected leisure based space interiorities. As an explanatory thesis, its outcomes are thought to be beneficial for further studies related to interiority, space mobility and space interiorities.

2002

The NASA Space Human Factors community engages in activities that range from basic research through advanced development projects to applications associated with ongoing programs such as the International Space Station and the Shuttle. This panel of NASA human factors specialists will present information relating to advanced development projects aimed at the creation of tools that can be applied to the analysis, design and evaluation of space vehicles and operations, and future space vehicle design concepts. The projects are: “The voice of the customer” - a description of the multiple pathways used to obtain astronaut information and opinion; International Space Station emergency medical procedure evaluation and redesign; the “magic windows” project which provides a multifunctional display system for operations and personal use on space vehicles and analogs; analytical approaches to digitally scanned crew member anthropometric data; crew member activity measurement, modeling and sch...