Designing for Outer Space

With NASA planning permanent bases in space and on the moon, MIT students develop prototypes for habitats far from planet Earth.

A futuristic habitat for space exploration

A new MIT course this spring asked students to design what humans might need to comfortably work in and inhabit space. The time for these creations is now. While the NASA Apollo missions saw astronauts land on the moon, collect samples, and return home, the missions planned under Artemis, NASA’s current moon exploration program, include establishing long-term bases in orbit as well as on the surface of the moon.

The cross-disciplinary design course was run in parallel with the departments of Architecture, and Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), and the MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiatives group. Thirty-five students from across the Institute registered to imagine, design, prototype, and test what might be needed to support human habitation and activities on the moon.

A modular inflatable mobile science library

The course’s popularity was not surprising to the instructors. “A lot of students at MIT are excited about space,” says Jeffrey Hoffman, one of the course instructors and professor of the practice in AeroAstro. Before teaching at MIT, Hoffman was a NASA astronaut who flew five missions aboard the space shuttle. “Certainly in AeroAstro, half the students want to be astronauts eventually, so it’s not like they hadn’t thought about living in space before. This was an opportunity to use that inspiration and work on a project that might become an actual design for real lunar habitats.”

MIT’s history with NASA, and with the Apollo missions in particular, is well documented. NASA’s first major contract for the Apollo program was awarded to MIT in 1961. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab and former NASA deputy administrator, was also a course instructor.

Preparing students for the next phase of working and living in space was the goal of this class. In addition to the Artemis missions, the rise of commercial spaceflight foretells the need to investigate these designs.

A semi-permanent in situ habitat for space exploration

A defining aspect of the class is the blend of architecture and engineering students. Each group brought different mindsets and approaches to the questions and challenges put before them. Shared activities, guest lectures, and a week touring NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; the SpaceX launch facility in Brownsville, Texas; and ICON’s 3D printing facilities for construction in Austin, Texas, provided the students with an introduction to teams already working in this field. Paramount among their lessons: an understanding of the harsh environments for which they will be designing.

Hoffman doesn’t sugarcoat what life in space is like. “Space is one of the most hostile environments you can imagine,” he says. “You’re sitting inside a spacecraft looking out the window, realizing that on the other side of that window, I’d be dead in a few seconds.”

The students were divided into seven teams to develop their projects, and the value of collaboration quickly became apparent. The teams began with a concept phase where the visions of the architects — whose impulse was to create a comfortable and livable habitat — sometimes conflicted with those of the engineers, who were more focused on the realities of the extreme environment.

An inflatable habitat that can be deployed within minutes

Inflatable designs emerged in several projects: a modular inflatable mobile science library that could support up to four people; an inflatable habitat that can be deployed within minutes to provide short-term shelter and protection for a crew on the moon; and a semi-permanent in situ habitat for space exploration ahead of an established lunar base.

Finding a common language was crucial to the teams working successfully together. “Architects and engineers tend to approach the design process differently,” says Annika Thomas, a mechanical engineering doctoral student and member of the MoonBRICCS team. “While it was a challenge to integrate these ideas early on, we found ways over time to communicate and coordinate our ideas, brought together by a common vision for the end of the project.”

The final projects showed the vast differences among the teams despite there being a “limited number of ways that you can actually keep people alive on the lunar surface,” says Cody Paige, director of Space Exploration Initiatives and a course instructor. Students needed to consider what types of materials were needed; how these would be transported and assembled; how long their structures would remain functional; and what social or human experience would be supported, among other concerns.

A permanent base on the moon

The hands-on experience to create life-size models was especially important in this course given that AI is becoming a larger component of so many tasks and areas of decision-making, according to Paige. “A computer doesn’t always translate exactly into the real world, and so having the students make prototypes shows them that there is a lot of benefit in understanding the materials you’re working with, how they function in real life, and the tactile ability that you can gather by working with these materials,” says Paige.

As fantastical as some of the projects appeared — with their combination of architecture, engineering, and design — they may very well be viable soon, especially as more architects are hired to design for space and students are understanding the landscape and needs for the demanding environments.

“We need to train our students to be the pioneers at the forefront of this field,” says Skylar Tibbits, a professor in the architecture department and one of the course instructors. “The longer astronauts are in space or on the moon, we need to be designing habitats for human experiences that people will want to live in for a long time.”

The need for architects and engineers skilled in this specific field is thriving. Thomas — the engineering student on the MoonBRICCS team — is currently working on robotics for space application. Her teammate — Palak Patel — is an engineering doctoral student working on extreme environment materials for space applications. With the enthusiasm of the students, as well as the considerable real-world occupational need, the three academic units plan to continue to offer the course in the future.

“We see extending this into a multi-year program in designing for extreme environments — in space and on Earth — and are actively discussing sponsorships and partnerships,” says de Monchaux.