The habitat would be home to a team of astronaut scientists for 500 days, so that they may emulate life on Mars and conduct a series of scientific studies to further research on the psychology of life in space.
We not only had to design a settlement that could be viably used in Mars, but also understand the psyche of mission participants to make them feel comfortable, while still "in space".
Goal: Design an Analog Habitat on Iceland that emulates an 8-person mission to Mars for 500 days.
Main Design Constraints:
- Habitat dimensions must accommodate up to 98th percentile of people
- Full habitat will be constructed over several missions
- Re-supply of food and water every 6 months
- Duration of 500 days
Anthropometrics & Ergonomics
A big part of the project was to identify the human anthropomorphic measurements across various demographics. We wanted the space to be fully accessible by the percentile demographics stated above.
Many of our physical mock-ups were tested in real life to make sure the prototypes were usable by people with different heights, arm lengths, etc.
Exterior Structure
Render showing the whole settlement. Two 2-story Living & Work Area units, one Airlock Unit (on the right), and one Garage Unit (seen on the left).
The scaffolding doesn't create in any additional structural strength. Rather, we utilized it as a railing system to make the exterior of the units customizable with a series of attachments. This could include solar panels, storage, or would allow the mounting of additional units in the future.
This connection was designed using NASA's current technology for the modular connections used in the International Space Station. It allows for the alignment of the modular units/pods while creating an air-tight seal.
Throughout the project, we made use of multiple types of modeling and prototyping. We used scale models, like seen above, real life scale models, as well as CAD. The combination of the three allowed us to get a firmer grasp of the scales and proportions we were working with.
We used the scale models to move the furniture and rooms around to come up with efficient flows for the astronauts' daily tasks.
Efficient Flow Through Space
Much of our work in the beginning was to understand the specific tasks the astronauts had to go through. We looked at their daily task lists, provided by NASA, to create an efficient workflow in the way they navigated through the space.
I found that this was much like designing a UX workflow and trying to understand what the user is going through, to optimize the outcome.
Living Area(s)
A model of the living chambers modeled in real-life scale in our studio space. Through physical modeling, we tested our measurements and how the space felt: whether it was too crowded or narrow. We made changes in our CAD models based on our findings from the physical prototyping.
Images above showing a physical 1:1 scale prototype of a kitchen counter that folds out into a table.
Airlock
The airlock was designed with careful consideration of our human anthropometric data. We also tested out our design with an accurate recreation of a space-suit, made in the previous of the NASA Studio at RISD by students.
A major concern for the project was saving water on space. Astronaut showers are limited to ~20 seconds, we saw this as a psychological problem for the participants. We hypothesized that there could be a "mist" shower, where the water wouldn't be a continuously flowing stream, but rather all around you in smaller particles. The mist would condense around your body and feel like actual water, allowing the astronauts to take much longer showers.
Stowage / Storage
One of our goals was to have no empty space in the units. We had to thoroughly think about and design something for every inch of the modular units as anything that goes to space is a highly expensive investment. We utilized some of these empty areas as storage, but calculated how much space each type of supply will require, and distributed the space accordingly.
Ventilation
Conclusion
This was a great learning experience for all 9 of us RISD students. Most, if not all of us had never tackled on a challenge this large, and trying to solve each problem one by one was a very rewarding challenge.
At the end of the day, using research, CAD, small-scale models, and real-life size models simultaneously and letting each resource inform the other was what made it all approachable. We used the models to understand the space, the scale, and to communicate.
Find our full Research & Process Board below, as well as our full presentation.