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Bjarke Ingels recently divulged his intentions to build on the moon by 2032. In a new interview with Fortune, Ingels talked about his firm’s involvement with ICON on the NASA-funded Project Olympus, saying "solar-powered lasers" will be used to "essentially melt moon dust into a... View full entry
AI SpaceFactory and the NASA Kennedy Space Center have unveiled the design of LINA, a 3D printed structure intended to become a lunar outpost. Designed to be constructed by autonomous robots on the Moon's south pole, the scheme is defined by Romanesque arches that can withstand high compressive... View full entry
Designer Colin Cantwell, who was responsible for the design of the Death Star and several iconic ships in the Star Wars saga, has passed away at the age of 90. The news was confirmed by the designer’s partner, Sierra Dall, and reported first by the Hollywood Reporter. Born in San Francisco in... View full entry
The MIT Media Lab has shared insights into their pioneering project to build habitats in outer space. Named TESSERAE, the project seeks to create a highly-engineered tile which can be used as a building block for self-assembling, adaptive, reconfigurable structures. Artist's render of TESSERAE... View full entry
Three U.S. university-led proposals have been selected by NASA to develop technologies for living and working on the Moon. This push for technological development comes as NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon through its Artemis missions, the agency’s plan to send the first... View full entry
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. — The New York Times
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... View full entry
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 [...].
— The Washington Post
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. View full entry
2020 taught us to embrace the indoors. However, as the world enters 2021, some may feel more propelled to seek out shelters that can protect them from calamity. At least that's how the New York and Miami-based practice ABIBOO Studio explains their latest project, the DBX Doomsday Bunker. Led... View full entry
Space remains a vast, untamed place, penned in only by the limits of our own imaginations.
So why the hell are there so many staircases in space? [...]
Once you start realizing how many stairs there are stopping you in real life, it becomes impossible not to notice them existing in the sci-fi you adore. Turns out they’re everywhere [...] our sci-fi imitates a real-world reliance on steps and stairs in our architecture.
— io9/Gizmodo
With Staircases in Space: Why Are Places in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?, Ace Ratcliff pens an excellent analysis of the pervasive presence of staircases in sci-fi that appear to foreshadow a future where universal accessibility for wheelchair-bound people like herself—and beyond... View full entry
Continuing with designing for space, Foster + Partners will showcase their vision of life on Mars and the Moon as part of the Future Lab showcase at the 2018 Goodwood Festival. The firm will show a range of models, robotics, and futuristic designs to explore the future of life in space... View full entry
Constance Adams, an architect who gave up designing skyscrapers to develop structures that would help travelers live with reasonable comfort on the International Space Station, Mars or the moon, died on Monday at her home in Houston. She was 53. — The New York Times
With architecture degrees from Harvard and Yale, Constance Adams worked—in the traditional sense of the profession—for César Pelli, Kenzo Tange, and German firm Josef Paul Kleihues, before applying her skills in various NASA design programs for space habitats (including the three-level... View full entry
Within 40 hours of the project being announced in 2016, over 100,000 people had applied for citizenship on Asgardia's website. After three weeks, Asgardia had 500,000 applicants. — CNN
On November 12, a hard drive 'nanosat' containing the information of 18,000 newly naturalized citizens of Asgardia took off for its two-day flight to the international space station. The nanosat — it is roughly the size of a loaf of bread — contains 0.5 TB of data such as family photographs... View full entry
The 3D Printed Habitat Challenge—NASA's three-phase, $2.5 million competition—tasks architecture firms to generate and advance the construction technologies necessary for off-world habitats. Each stage of the challenge asks the teams to design and test an individual prototypical building... View full entry
The MIT project — the Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA) — was designed as a commercially owned and operated space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant for 10 years. NASA’s estimated recurring costs, $360 million per year, represent an order of magnitude reduction from the current costs of maintaining and operating the International Space Station. — MIT News
Left to right: Caitlin Mueller (faculty advisor), Matthew Moraguez, George Lordos, and Valentina Sumini are some of the members of the interdisciplinary MIT team that won first place in the graduate division of the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts-Academic Linkage Design Competition... View full entry
Confined in Utah’s Mars Desert Research habitat for three days—habitat diameter: 33 feet—the five-person team experienced the cramped living quarters and zero-waste living necessary to survive a journey to outer space. — Quartz
Designers from IKEA are exploring space-saving solutions for tiny homes by living in an actual Mars research station. During the immersion workshop led by Constance Adams, NASA architect behind the habitat for the first human mission to Mars, the team examines the ways in which astronauts'... View full entry
