Hello everyone,
I am currently a senior undergraduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design, and this semester I am part of the RISD NASA studio that some of you may know about. RISD usually has a studio class in collaboration with NASA every year. This year we’re designing what is being called a Common Crew Habitat. The official description is below, but the gist of it is for our final project we are designing a common habitat for crew to live in that could be adapted to different missions, rather than designing a new habitat for each mission.
I have started this thread for me, and my studio mates to post our work from this studio and get some valuable feedback from everyone here on the core boards. Any constructive comments will be appreciated!
Design for Extreme Environments: Common Crew Habitat, ID-24ST-07
What Are Extreme Environments?
Extreme environments create extraordinary challenges to human physiological and
psychological existence where common expectations for safety, comfort and performance
need to be radically redefined. Putting people into unfamiliar or highly dangerous surroundings
requires an extreme level of attention to design. It is not enough to design technologies,
systems, or equipment that function according to basic technical specifications. Human needs of
the users, and the people who will interact with them must be incorporated.
Gravity affects everything we do here on Earth. Designing for a zero gravity environment is
radically different – common assumptions no longer hold true and every aspect of a design must
be considered in a new context. This questioning of assumptions and the awareness of context
are essential for good design – whether in space, on Mars, the Earth’s moon, or here on Earth.
The “Design for Extreme Environments” studios fit into a long tradition at RISD of teaching
universal and socially responsible design as a means to emphasize a uniquely human perspective
on design and design methodologies. These studios teach design through the constraints
imposed by extreme environments, highlighting the design process with an unparalleled
emphasis on the user. This emphasis on creativity and innovation in tightly constrained
situations, along with the emphasis on human needs and interactions allows the work to have
far broader applications and influence than the exclusive focus on the space program.
For this semester, NASA has approached RISD with the objective of understanding how best to
design a “Common Crew Habitat” that would serve many different mission architectures. Could
the same habitat design function as well on a Mars mission as it would when sending astronauts
to an asteroid? If adaptations are required, how might they be best accomplished without
starting over on a clean sheet of paper each time? What is really possible?
During this semester we will work directly with personnel at NASA’s Johnson Space Center
to develop concepts for habitats, cockpits and systems that will demonstrate the idea of
a “common design” approach. We will build mockups to help visualize the problems and
understand what impacts the designs would have on astronauts on a long duration mission.
NASA will provide information and access to current requirements and past design studies to
assist our understanding of life for an astronaut. This studio will play a key role in helping NASA
explore possibilities for new approaches to the design of spacecraft and habitats.
