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. — placesjournal.org
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.
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.
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 off of Earth.
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