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Published in:
The Strategic Role of Design for Space Read chapter Read first chapter

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Research and Design for Space Life

Author : Annalisa Dominoni

Published in: Design of Supporting Systems for Life in Outer Space

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

To affirm with certainty and determination that Design for Space plays a fundamental and strategic role in human space exploration, it took me years of researches and projects that started from my Ph.D. in Industrial Design for Space at the Politecnico di Milano, after taking a degree in Architecture, at the same university, and becoming an architect.

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previous chapter Living in Space by the Lens of Design
next chapter Space Design Between Research, Project and Education
Footnotes
1
On 13 April 1970, Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell told NASA headquarters: “Houston, we’ve had a problem” and began to explain the technical details of the failure. There was an explosion on board, and the ship was rapidly losing oxygen. I will begin for the crew and the whole of America, the odyssey of the difficult return to Earth, which should have been place 4 days later. All that remained was to abandon the objective of the Moon. The NASA control center in Houston decided for a passage around the Moon to push the Space Shuttle and make it take a route to Earth with a return trajectory “free”, i.e. driven manually. In the lunar module, the astronauts lived critical hours that the whole world followed with bated breath: three men for 4 days in a space designed to accommodate two people for 2 days. The energy reserves were scarce, and even the water, the heat decreased. The carbon dioxide filters were not enough for three people, but by making do with what they found on board and with the guidance of the control center, the astronauts built an adapter that they called “the mailbox”. Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger then wrote a book about the mission, Lost Moon, which inspired the Ron Howard Apollo 13 film.
 
2
The mock-up is a model with the same dimensions and weight as the real module, but it is not made of the same materials. There are four stages in the development of the mock-up, even if usually all four are never constructed for one single project.
The first model represents the shell, the environment and overall volume, and it permits verification of its dimensions, movements, illumination and colours.
The second, more approximate than the first because it is made of inexpensive materials, is more precise in terms of the internal configuration of the structure: complex details are verified and possible movement between the components is foreseen, and it can be tested underwater. This model is often substituted by an electronic mock-up for testing volumetric relationships, assembly and disassembly of the components, etc.
Real parts are added to the third mock-up, which is very similar to the second one: these are parts that actually work from a mechanical point of view, such as connectors, switches, lights, energy and interfaces. However, they are made of inexpensive materials.
The last mock-up has real equipment that is useful for training the crew such as the possibility of carrying out test procedures of the various instruments that the astronauts will find on board during the mission but there is no redundancy, there are no doubles of instruments foreseen in the real configuration. Furthermore, the functionality of the instruments on the fourth mock-up imitates the real situation, but not of the quality of the instruments in terms of safety and reliability.
 
3
The Use and Gesture Design (UGD) methodology is explained in the first chapter of this book and represents an innovation in approaching the development of the project, both on Earth then in Space, looking at the behaviours and the movements of the human being while interacting with tools and environments.
 
4
If usually the spin-off term is used to describe a technological transfer from different fields of application, I started from the beginning of my experience using spin-off (from Space to Earth) and spin-in (from Earth to Space) to define behaviours transfers, because Design discipline concerns, before all, the human being.
 
5
The rack is a sort of modular cabinet which covers the walls of the habitable modules of the ISS. Its structure is conceived to host experiments, equipment and tools useful for the whole functioning and maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS).
 
6
The parabolic flights are currently the simulation system that most closely imitates the effective conditions of microgravity experienced in orbit, but for very short intervals of time, approximately 30 s of microgravity each parabola with an Airbus A300. The bigger limit is the need to subdivide the operative procedures into many separate sequences of operations lasting no more than the period of one parabola. A standard flight campaign lasts 3 days, with 30 to 40 parabolas carried out on each day, considering that between two successive parabolas they pass from 2 to about 4 min.
 
7
The briefing and the de-briefing are activities that involve astronauts to check the products during the design process, before the realization of the prototypes (briefing activities) and after to have conducted tests of usability (de-briefing activities) in order to give opinions and suggestions to improve the performative qualities of the project.
 
8
We utilize to call in Space jargon spatialization the sum of all the procedures referred to NASA Technical Standard 3000, specific for human space flights, and tests that make a product ready to be launched in Space respecting requirements of human factors, habitability and environmental health.
 
9
The Paper IVA Clothing Support System received the Scientific Award for Young Researchers by the European Space Agency (ESA): In appreciation of Annalisa Dominoni scientific value presenting the paper “IVA Clothing Support System” at ESA ExploSpace Workshop, Space Exploration and Resources Exploitation, Cagliari, Sardinia.
 
13
idem.
 
16
A Year in Space: Reflections about the Integration of a Product Designer in Collaborative Space Projects, is a thesis by Emilia Rosselli Del Turco; Supervisors proff. Annalisa Dominoni and Benedetto Quaquaro, School of Design, Politecnico di Milano; Co- Supervisors: prof. Paolo Fino, Politecnico di Torino, dr. Aidan Cowley, European Astronaut Centre (EAC).
 
17
Space4InspirAction (S4I), which will be treated in this book as a case study, is the first and unique “Space Design” Course in the world recognized and supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) with experts and scientists who suggest and then deepen the project themes, chosen every year together with us, in line with the main objectives of the space agencies and industries’ strategic interplanetary programs. S4I was created in 2017 by me together with the architect/designer and professor Benedetto Quaquaro, at the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, inside the Master of Science in Integrated Product Design. While I’m writing we are leading the 4th edition Space4InspirAction 2020 in distance, according to the rules for the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
18
Evan Twyford in the video Industrial Design for the Outer Space, Vice Media 2012, NASA Archives.
 
19
I led and developed the project of the new spaceship together with Benedetto Quaquaro identifying, according to Thales Alenia Space, Preliminary Design Solutions for the Support to New Orbital Infrastructure Recreational/Habitable Configuration inside our Space4InspirAction Lab at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano.
 
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Metadata
Title
Research and Design for Space Life
Author
Annalisa Dominoni
Copyright Year
2021
Book
Design of Supporting Systems for Life in Outer Space

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60941-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-60942-9

Copyright Year: 2021

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60942-9_3

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