Axiom space station interior rendering courtesy of dezeen.

Everything Needs to Be Designed

by SweisKloss
July 18, 2024

Even space stations. To acknowledge the 55th anniversary of man walking on the moon this Saturday, we thought we’d boldly go where we have not gone before in this blog – space!

The current International Space Station (ISS) is truly “international.” The construction, operation, and occupancy are a collaboration between the space agencies of the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada. It took 10 years to build, is the size of a football field, and weighs 460 tons (ISS National Laboratory website), as much as 4 ½ full swimming pools (NASA.gov).

The ISS is constructed of different modules, such as boosters, solar arrays, laboratories and sleeping quarters, being added over time (NASA.gov). It would be endlessly adaptable, but maintenance is becoming more difficult as it becomes harder to find replacement parts (NPR 2/14/2024).

According to NASA, the first crew arrived at the end of 2000, but the ISS was not considered complete until 2011. The ISS’ useful life is expected to continue to 2030 when NASA and its international partners will leave the old neighborhood and move on up to deep space, the Moon and Mars. As NASA prepares for disassembling and “deorbiting” the ISS, it is leaving the tenancy of “low Earth orbit” to commercial operations (NASA.org).

In fact, there will be nine new tenants in the low Earth orbit neighborhood (they are going to need an HOA!) with space stations from China, Europe, India and several from the USA including Blue Origin and Sierra Space’s “business park in space”, and the “Vast” space station from the US providing “artificial-gravity habitats for space tourism” (BBC Sky at Night Magazine). “Vast” will be the low Earth orbit neighborhood’s playground for those who pay $55million to go play!

Presently on the ISS, stowage for personal items is limited, the modules are packed with vital equipment, experiments and consumables (food packets, toilet paper, etc.). The interiors likened to cluttered hospital corridors. Walls, floors and ceilings all hold racks of cables, monitors, computers, etc. within which an astronaut’s spatial reference can get garbled causing confusion and nausea. There are no bedrooms, “the rack frameworks are roughly the size of passport-photograph booths and were large enough to adapt to private sleeping compartments,” and no dining table. Just a giant airline fold-out tray. The windowed cupola provides the only space for peace and quiet and is a favorite place for crew members to put their head in to take in the panoramic views (Metropolismag.com).

In stark contrast, French designer Philippe Starck (pun very much intended), is designing the interiors for the living space for “Axiom,” one of the 9 space stations. His “Comfortable Egg” design has suede-textured walls, floors and ceilings, tiny LED lights with mood changing colors, and large windows throughout (dezeen.com).

The design so far shows an interior like those in science fiction movie sets such as 2001 and Star Wars. The design is futuristic, innovative and extremely modern. Furniture will be curvilinear and geometrically shaped. The overall style will be minimalist and not “overly glitzy.” The basic color scheme will be whites to blacks, “sometimes followed by lime, blue, yellow and red.” It will contain not only dining tables but restaurants and cocktail bars (Brera Interni.com).

The first woman to command the ISS now works for Axiom. Peggy Whitson wants to declutter by having all the wires hidden behind panels, windows in the crew quarters, and “a cupola so large that you’ll be able to float your whole entire body in there” (NPR 2/14/24).

As for NASA, they are asking private companies to submit designs for the ISS replacement. “SweisKloss in Space” has a nice ring to it don’t you think?