"Every single aspect of space is conspiring at every moment to pretty much kill humans."
And this is part of what motivates Madhu Thangavelu to be a space architect.
[inset]
He and others in his profession love the challenge: they thrive on designing and building launch pads, rockets and spacecraft to carry humans to outer space. But doing it safely is the hard part.
"So, it's very important that architects are extremely safe, though daring at the same time," explains Thangavelu.
Larry Bell, who contributed years of design work to the construction of the
International Space Station (ISS), more recently dubbed "Space Station Alpha," says space architects have special challenges that others in the design field do not. "When designing a building on Earth, do architects build a toilet? No. The space architect looks at how it's going to come together and how well people like the design. One can't be involved in a problem and not have an idea of all of the pieces that make the system work."
 |
 |
 |  | More Stories |
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|  | Multimedia |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|  | Related Links |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
 |
This picture shows a mockup design of a sleeping area of a space station.
The late Dr. Wernher von Braun is considered a forefather of space architecture and exploration. The Saturn rockets that carried Apollo crews to the Moon and lifted the space station Skylab and it's crew into orbit were developed and built under Von Braun's leadership. But calling von Braun, the first director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, just an engineer and not a space architect would be a disservice, Thangavelu says.
Like many space architects who follow in his footsteps, von Braun took that jump from analyzing mathematical problems, the way engineers do, to building complex systems. Thangavelu says this "incredible" leap of faith -- from analyzing to building -- is what defines a space architect.
Designing for the inside and outside
Designing for outer space turns most elements of traditional architecture on its head, literally.
~
"When you are dealing with zero gravity, everything changes," Bell says. "It affects the way you design everything. The notion of up and down is arbitrary. You have to try to purge yourself of the biases we have from living on Earth."
Bell says that when he designs, he takes more than the structure itself into consideration, he thinks of the people who will dwell inside the structure.
"There's the psychology, physiology and biology of the astronaut that must be considered," he explains. "You have to account for changes in body posture. And sitting isn't comfortable because you need to use your stomach muscles to sit down. Your feet are usually restrained, because everything needs to be secured. And there's a lot of opportunity for algae and fungi to grow, so you even have to think about what kind of detergent would work best up there."
Not exactly what design firms in Manhattan typically consider.
Some suggest capturing and habitating asteroids to use as our future homes in space. The Ovum II habitat, pictured here, is designed to house up to 10,000 people.
"You don't want the shuttle to look like a shiny bus and you have to watch out for switches that could be kicked and sharp corners. It's also important to figure in
some privacy and space to exercise for the astronauts as well. And, you are constantly having to fight weight, making things as lightweight as possible."
[uplink]
Sounds like a near-impossible task. But with a growing history and design portfolio, the job of "space architect" is actually becoming more doable. Much of
what made the ISS a success were elements borrowed from the Mir and Skylab space stations. And Skylab was built from many Apollo elements.
Bell says space architects are now able to build more amenities into shuttles and increase the comfort level for future space travelers.
Visionaries in the field
Just last month, on October 31st,
a three-man crew blasted off to the ISS. They are the first full-time tenants of the station, and may well give the human race a permanent foothold in outer space. How did we come this far?
It couldn't have happened without renowned architects, industrial designers, artists and visionaries.
The 20th-century visionary Buckminster Fuller, who coined the phrase "Spaceship Earth" and popularized the word "synergy," laid critical groundwork for our modern vision and look of spacecraft and stations.
~
Before
Stanley Kubrick began depicting space life on the big screen, artist and illustrator Chesley Bonestell was creating renditions of astronomical scenes and spaceflight missions. Many space enthusiasts believe these had a profound effect upon the space architecture of the 1960s, including the work of John Frassanito of Frassanito & Associates.
Frassanito was a key player in convincing NASA that the ISS be a modular -- rather than a fixed -- design, so its design could be updated as needed. Working as a NASA contractor at the time, Frassanito based this proposal on his experience working on the interior of Skylab with well-known industrial designer Raymond Loewy, known for his classic 1940s Lucky Strike cigarette ads and other designs. He is also credited for helping develop
the X-33, a prototype for a new reusable launch vehicle, and concept craft for lunar and Martian missions.
Two space architects, and
Nader Khalili, are taking an environmentally sensitive track in their space designs. Both are developing structures that could help reduce space junk.
Space architect Nader Khalili supervises construction of a home in his simulated lunar colony in Hesperia, California.
Soleri is an architect who lives and works outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where he has been building a prototype urban dwelling, called Arcosanti, since 1970. He developed Arcosanti based on a concept he calls "arcology," which embodies the fusion of architecture and ecology. Soleri proposes building highly integrated and
compact three-dimensional urban communities that are the opposite of urban sprawl and much less wasteful. He would like to see these concepts be applied to future space civilizations.
Soleri envisions future space cities "are of a very compact and miniaturized life. The idea is that we eventually will
capture an asteroid or a small planet to contain human [habitats] into capsules which you can compare to a placenta."
Nader Khalili has devoted the last 25 years to the growing field of earth architecture. He lives and works in Hesperia, California, where he founded the Cal-Earth Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth). He is the innovator of "Superadobe" homes, dwellings made from 95-percent natural materials. In 1984, he proposed to NASA a way to build lunar colonies using indigenous Moon materials rather than transporting man-made materials from Earth. Building in space with materials already in space cuts down on both cost and pollution.
Like Soleri, Khalili believes humans have to learn to do more with less on Earth and in space. NASA and other space organizations are showing interest in their designs.
If they can dream it, they can build it
With increasing
interest in commercializing space and in manned space missions, there is now a spate of offerings in universities that allow advanced students to delve into this field.
Madhu Thangavelu aims to inspire students of his space architecture class at the University of Southern California (USC) that "if they can dream it, they can build it."
~
In Aerospace Engineering 599, a "Space Exploration Architectures Concepts Synthesis Studio" at USC, a mix of space professionals and graduate students enroll. In one term, the class focused on the exploration of Mars. The midterm exam task was for each student to come up with a concept for a phase of Mars exploration. The final exam of the term had students pulling each of their concepts together to build one coherent system of models, evaluated by experts from the space industry.
This model of a space station was created by architect Madhu Thangavelu while he attended the International Space University.
At the University of Houston, space architect Larry Bell founded the highly successful Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) in 1987 with a $3 million gift from Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation, headed by Ryoichi Sasakawa. SICSA is a research and design organization that has become a primary financial and teaching resource in Houston's Experimental Architecture masters' program. Many of its graduates have taken challenging and high-ranking jobs with leading aerospace companies. With Larry Bell as the Director, SICSA -- which has a full-scale space habitat design mock-up and mission simulation module -- has also undertaken a number of projects for the NASA Johnson Space Center.
"It's a candy store for designers; it's as good as it gets," gloats Bell like a proud dad. "I'm excited about teaching at SICSA because I am surrounded by incredibly nice and bright people who are exploring horizons and trying to make sense of the world," adds Bell.
A recent gift from Bigelow Aerospace has allowed SICSA to develop the Artificial Gravity Science and Excursion Vehicle (AGSEV). The vehicle is meant to meet special requirements for future lunar and Martian excursions.
These groundbreaking space programs will enable a new crop of space architects to build greater and more complex structures. They will do more and go further, and bring the next generation of space explorers there in the process.
SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor Katy Ramirez contributed to this report.
advertisement
