Archinect - News

Blue Origin plans to build a 'mixed-use' space station by the end of the decade

2021-11-01T18:13:00-04:00

Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is teaming up with other firms to build a space station in Earth orbit. The group announced its plans on Monday, revealing the latest concept for a privately built orbital outpost that could replace or complement the International Space Station.

Called Orbital Reef, the proposed space station is described as a “mixed-use business park” in space. The project’s announcement comes months after Blue Origin completed its first human space flight, which included Bezos along with three others. Partners in the project include Sierra Space, Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University.

As per Blue Origin’s announcement, Orbital Reef “will provide the essential infrastructure needed to scale economic activity and open new markets in space.” The company intends for the station to serve a range of customers from space agencies to media and travel companies. They also claim that the station will start operating in the second half of this decade.

Previously on Archinect: Jeff Bezos wants to go to space because "it's important"

China begins research into constructing kilometer-spanning spacecraft

2021-09-01T16:23:00-04:00

A mega spacecraft assembled in orbit is among projects that Chinese researchers have been invited to study, as the country expands plans for future space exploration and long-term crewed missions. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has called on scientists to join a five-year project to study the mechanics of an “ultra-large spacecraft spanning kilometres”

This is among 10 proposed research projects released in August by the foundation’s mathematical and physical sciences department, which will provide funding of up to $2.3 million to five projects. The project will gather researchers to investigate how this endeavor could be realized, exploring the engineering challenges of such a major undertaking. For example, according to the project’s outline, the modular spacecraft would have to be assembled in space through a series of separate trips due to its size. To limit the number of launches and construction costs, researchers will be tasked with minimizing the weight of the spacecraft.

According to the South China Morning Post, China has invested heavily in its space program, with projects including sending a functional rover on Mars and the development of its Tiangong space station.

In regards to the kilometer-spanning speculative project, the foundation states, “[Such a spacecraft] is a major strategic aerospace equipment for the fu...

Come for the view, stay for the artificial gravity: world's first space hotel to kick off construction by 2026

2021-03-03T14:54:00-05:00

While the concept of space tourism may sound ludicrous, plans to launch people into space as a vacation vs. a vocation are well underway. Orbital Assembly, a large space construction company, announced this year in a virtual event on its YouTube channel that it was on track to begin construction on the world’s (er, galaxy’s) first space hotel by 2026 [...].

Scale comparison between the planned Voyager Space Station (200 meters/656 feet in overall diameter) and the existing International Space Station (73 meters/240 feet long and 109 meters/358 feet wide). Image courtesy of Orbital Assembly.

What will space exploration look like in the near future? The inaugural Outer Space competition winners propose their architectural visions

2019-09-17T00:00:00-04:00

Many of us have long been captivated by the fantastical sci-fi visions of space exploration from previous decades, but are these images still the best representation of our future in outer space? For the inaugural Outer Space competition organized by Blank Space (the creators of the popular Fairy Tales Architecture Competition), architects and designers from around the planet were challenged to envision what space exploration could look like within the next two centuries.

Through intricate stories and original artwork, entrants considered how today's scientific and technological advances can shape futuristic visions of space exploration in the near future. “What kinds of structures will be developed to move, house and sustain people? How will robotics, AI, autonomous spacecraft, and satellites enhance our reach?,” Blank Space writes.

The esteemed jury — which included astronaut Chris Hadfield, architect David Benjamin of The Living, Studio Drift, Chris Precht, and more — evaluated ...

Designs for outer space at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

2019-08-01T19:31:00-04:00

Fifty years since the first footsteps on the Moon, the exploration of the cosmos remains irresistible, and the ambition to establish commercial space travel and planetary settlements continues to capture the imagination. Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space celebrates the visionary ideas and ingenious solutions from architects, artists, and designers who dared to imagine life far out among the stars.

Entitled Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space, SFMOMA's exhibition celebrating the "booming space industry," will be open from July 20, 2019 to January 20, 2020. "Extraterrestrial conditions amplify the challenge to design for space travel, and new research and technologies are making what was once science fiction a reality," the museum writes. The exhibition will explore the work of artists and architects and how their ideas fit into "our cosmic quest."

Jeff Bezos wants to go to space because "it's important"

2019-07-19T16:08:00-04:00

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world with a current net worth of $125 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. And he’s investing much of his Amazon fortune in the development of space technologies through his aerospace company Blue Origin. Why? “Because I think it’s important,” Bezos tells Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News in an interview which aired Tuesday.

In a CBS Evening News special, Amazon's Jeff Bezos shares with Norah O'Donnell the importance of his space initiatives and his aerospace company Blue Origin. In a passionate voice, Bezos exclaims, "We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilization."

He goes on to discuss the world's current state and the danger it's under. From overpopulation, climate change, pollution, and big industry, Bezos proclaims, "We are in the process of destroying this planet. And we have sent robotic probes to every planet in the solar system — this is the good one. So, we have to preserve this planet."

Bezos isn't the first person to dream about living in space. His goals for using Blue Origin as a catalyst to make his space city possible has undergone much criticism. Perhaps his aspirations are in the right place, but his plans for this "possible future" have created quite the response from the general public. Critics like Fred Scharmen have shared their reactio...

Saturn V rocket to be projected onto the Washington Monument

2019-07-10T13:23:00-04:00

As the nationwide effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing kicks off, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. has unveiled plans to project a representation of a Saturn V rocket onto the Washington Monument.

The projection is designed by 59 Productions, an international team made up of artists, architects, and technologists that has brought multi-media events to the Guggenheim Bilbao museum and Edinburgh Castle, among other notable structures.

The projection in Washington, D.C. will take place for five nights starting on July 16th, culminating with a series of multi-media celebrations that will "unfold on the face of the Washington Monument" while being accompanied by "supporting screens, including a 40-foot-wide recreation of the famous Kennedy Space Center countdown clock," according to the museum.

Site map showing the projection areas around the Washington Monument. Image courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum.

On July 19th, the ...

Satellites could outnumber all visible stars soon

2019-06-03T14:21:00-04:00

Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos.

“This has the potential to change what a natural sky looks like,” Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer who promotes night skies told The New York Times.

Astronomers and night sky-enthusiasts worry because SpaceX is planning to send potentially thousands of satellites into orbit as part of a new business venture aimed at connecting the entire planet to the internet.

Other technology companies, including Amazon, are also making plans for coming space internet ventures, raising the possibility of a night sky filled with more satellites than visible stars in the very near future.

Is Jeff Bezos' dream for a city in space just a sales pitch? Fred Scharmen breaks it down

2019-05-13T21:00:00-04:00

Now, in 2019, Jeff Bezos wants his private space company to take over the public imagination about life in space. Bezos is the head of a retail empire, and he knows how to sell an image, but what he’s offering today is a watered-down version of nostalgia for yesterday’s future. Bezos’s proposal is a version of O’Neill’s project that somehow manages to look and feel less futuristic than its predecessor.

The possibility of humans living in space is nothing new. Authors, scientists, and designers have all dreamed and formulated how this could be possible. Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, recently pitched his idea for space habitation and how his private space company Blue Origin would make this possible. After looking at rendered images of Bezos' idea some have noticed the stark similarities between them and former Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill's work presented in 1975. These similarities are intentional due to Bezos being a former student of O'Neill's. Architectural academic, designer and researcher Fred Scharmen shared with CityLab his thoughts on the new project and its relation to O'Neill's idea.

Rendering of Gerard O'Neill's space colony made by Rick Guidice for NASA in the 1970s. Image © NASA Ames Research Center

Rendered image of Jeff Bezos" Blue Origin space city was inspired by former professor Gerard O'Neill. Image © Blue Origin

"With so many similarities evident be...

SOM's new Moon Village concept brings us one giant step closer to human settlement on the lunar surface

2019-04-12T10:31:00-04:00

In light of a recent breakthrough within the topic of space, the architecture design firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) shares their partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in designing the first "full-time human habitat on the lunar surface." All three teams are working towards the planning, designing, and engineering of the settlement known as "Moon Village." According to SOM design partner Colin Koop, "the project presents a completely new challenge for the field of architectural design. The Moon Village must be able to sustain human life in an otherwise uninhabitable setting. We have to consider problems that no one would think about on Earth, like radiation protection, pressure differentials, and how to provide breathable air.”

Moon Village master plan. Image © SOM

Aerial view rendering of Moon Village. Image © SOM | Slashcube GmbH

Berm rendering in Moon Village. Image © SOM | Slashcube GmbH

With this new venture, ...

European space scientists experiment turning lunar dust into building blocks

2018-08-24T16:25:00-04:00

Scientists with the European Space Agency (ESA) have created a terrestrial simulation of moon dust to practice making bricks with. And it appears lunar “soil” is significantly different from its terrestrial equivalent, as it can be crushed, burned and compressed to form building materials, or used as the raw material for 3D printing.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is experimenting with lunar dust as a building material with goals to avoid lifting hefty materials from Earth into space. Lunar dust is electrically charged and primarily composed of basalt (like volcanic rock) with 40% of its mass made of oxygen. ESA is testing this unique material to create solid blocks, which could potentially construct launch pads or lunar habitats.

What past designs for outer space can teach us about the future

2018-08-20T14:45:00-04:00

A drawing in [Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's] 1883 manuscript Free Space might be the first depiction of humans in orbital weightlessness. Four figures float in a spherical spaceship, each pointed in a different direction, disoriented... This basic design — primary thruster, secondary retro rockets, axial gyros for orientation — has been used by all crewed Russian and American spacecraft to date, including the International Space Station.

Looking back at the history of outer space design, Fred Scharmen brings past innovations into the present with applications for our future. Starting back in 1883 with the first design for humans in outer space (seen below), Konstantin Tsiolkovsky imagined a new way of thinking about spatial design.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Free Space, 1883. Image: Russian Academy of Sciences.

Scharmen follows this path of design up through 1975 with Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill's project, funded by NASA, to develop habitats for civilization in space. A team of engineers, space scientists, physicists, artists, urban planners, and architects were assembled to create isolated and controlled interiors for humans to live in.

Bernal Sphere, 1975. Image: Rick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center.

Habitats like the Bernal Sphere were created as exercises in imagining completely new systems of design. Scharmen advocates that these outer space design exercises are the key to innovation for design both on and...

The logistics of building NASA's carbon-dioxide insulated, "Ice Home" on Mars

2017-01-03T13:04:00-05:00

If you don't think you can handle another year on Earth, the possibility of dwelling comfortably on another planet is closer than you might expect. After announcing a winning design from Clouds Architecture Office and Space Exploration Architecture last October, NASA has released more detailed logistical plans for building a carbon dioxide insulated, ice-filled exterior home that could be assembled by robots in preparation for human habitation. The design uses naturally occurring resources found on Mars and predicts that with the planet's estimated daily water extraction rate, it would take about 400 days for the exterior to be filled with water. As the article notes:

The “Mars Ice Home” is a large inflatable torus, a shape similar to an inner tube, which is surrounded by a shell of water ice. The Mars Ice Home design has several advantages that make it an appealing concept. It is lightweight and can be transported and deployed with simple robotics, then filled with water before the...

Hawaii's Thirty Meter Telescope could be moved to the Canary Islands

2016-12-01T12:40:00-05:00

The Thirty Meter Telescope’s International Observatory Board decided late last month that if they cannot move forward with building the telescope in Hawaii, they will instead choose La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands...The nonprofit group that’s building the Thirty Meter Telescope began scoping out other sites for the $1.4 billion telescope this fall—including mountains in Chile, India, China, and Mexico...

Previous news about the TMT:

Hawaii protesters block construction of giant telescope on sacred mountain Mauna Kea

The $1.5B 30m telescope (TMT) will be the biggest ever

European Space Agency's first resident artist is planning a temple on the moon

2016-08-16T14:34:00-04:00

[Jorge Mañes Rubio] plans to 3D print portions of the temple; other sections will incorporate an existing boulder, creating a cross between a building and a cave...The work will engage with a wide swath of architectural history, including the Pantheon, Mayan temples, and the Egyptian pyramids, [he] says. But when considering the possibilities on the moon, 18th-century French utopian architects like Étienne-Louis Boullée or Claude-Nicolas Ledoux have been the most influential.

For his current endeavor called Peak of Eternal Light, artist Jorge Mañes Rubio is working with the ESA to build a temple on the moon, as a way to “examine the potential social and anthropological aspects of colonizing celestial bodies”.

How to turn Martian soil into concrete

2016-01-07T17:46:00-05:00

Thanks to the work of Lin Wan and pals at Northwestern University...these guys have worked out how to make Martian concrete using materials that are widely available on Mars. And, crucially, this concrete can be formed without using water, which will be a precious resource on the red planet.

For more of Archinect's coverage of extra-terrestrial architectural news, check out:

• NASA launches competition for structures built in situ using Martian resources

• The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface

• ESA proposes a village on the moon

The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface

2015-10-10T11:52:00-04:00

So continues the space-age fantasy of humankind someday living successfully on the Red Planet, or undertaking expeditions to the far ends of the universe. In this spirit, NASA and America Makes' launched their 3D Printed Habitat Challenge late last year, wherein multi-disciplinary teams proposed shelters equipped to endure the environments of Mars and (eventually) deep-space exploration.

Following rigorous evaluations by the jury and a public showcase at the NYC World Maker Faire this past September, the eight-member Clouds AO + Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch) team took home the overall winning $25,000 prize with their "Mars Ice House" design, out of 30 finalist submissions.

Enticing sci-fi aesthetics aside, the Mars Ice House's optimistic approach focuses on interior-to-exterior terrestrial concepts that could enable inhabitants to live comfortably and in harmony on the Martian surface, instead of buried underneath and completely closed off. "The architecture of ICE HOUSE...e...

Space Noir

2014-12-01T14:28:00-05:00

The European Space Agency recently released a group of photos taken by astronaut Alexander Gerst showing the International Space Station at night. The only real contextual information provided is that "the six astronauts on the weightless research centre live by GMT, and generally sleep at the same time." Gerst—so close to Geist!—thus took advantage of the downtime to produce some images that make the ISS look uninhabited, a dead mansion rolling through space.

How do humans perceive the built environment in outer space?

2014-07-10T14:43:00-04:00

I put out a call via twitter and facebook for quick drawings of the ISS from memory. Asking my social media friends for sketches wasn't some kind of contest about accuracy or skill, it was more an investigation into what sorts of visual responses come up when people think about the space station. The (totally unscientific) results reveal much about how we see and understand the built environment in outer space.