Space Habitat Designers

Space habitat designers develop, design, and test space habitat technology. Examples of space habitats include space vehicles, stations, habitats, and lunar, planetary bases and infrastructures. There are three main formats of space habitat structures:

• Those that are constructed on Earth and transported to their installation location in space or on the moon, Mars, or other place.
• Those that can be manufactured on a planetary or lunar surface—either with indigenous resources or materials that are transported from Earth or from another celestial body to the location of the space habitat construction area.
• Those that are transported from Earth and inflated at their final destination.

It’s important to keep in mind that, thus far, the only space habitats that are in use are orbiting the earth. One example is the International Space Station. But designers are currently developing space habitats that will be used on the moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, as well as in space (especially for long-distance space travel and for space tourism).

Space habit designers consider a wide range of issues when designing a space habitat. Examples include life support, communications, power, storage, waste management, thermal control, food storage and preparation, medical care, exercise, work, and sleep. Initial questions they must consider include: Where will the habitat be located? What are its primary and secondary uses? What construction materials will be used (and where will they be sourced from)? What is the expected lifespan of the structure? What is the expected size of the habitat, and how many occupants will it house? Designers must also consider how their proposed designs positively or negatively affect the mental and physical well-being of astronauts or other users. Designers also talk to astronauts and other potential users to better understand how they will use the habitat.

Once they answer these and other questions, designers use computer-aided design, building information modeling, and other types of software to create designs. They build miniature or larger-scale mockups of the habitat to better understand the potential rewards and drawbacks of the design. They also use virtual and augmented reality tools to help them visualize designs. Space habitat designers may build and test habitats in areas of the Earth that provide analogs to space applications. Examples include the Antarctic, deserts, undersea environments, and closed ecological systems.

Space habitat design is an interdisciplinary field, so designers frequently collaborate with space medicine physicians, psychiatrists, physiologists, and chemists, materials scientists, and other types of scientists. Designers work with these and other professionals during the process to take an idea on paper to a completed design or even a fully constructed habitat.