Architecture for Astronauts

Abstract

Foreword by Richard Horden .

Greenhouses and their humanizing synergies

“…"During missions, astronauts often long for the tastes and smells of home," says the brochure distributed by the US government's Astro Garden developer. This was also confirmed by several astronauts interviewed by Haeuplik-Meusburger [17]. "Experiments involving plants have provided them with that important link back to Earth, and have made plants an important tool for their psychological well-being in space."…”

“…Astronauts confirm the importance of tending plants to keep themselves occupied during their free time and to encourage interaction of the crew with living beings in a technologically mediated habitat [17]. On Salyut 1, the first flax seed sprouts were tended to devotedly by crew members Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov, who found a common source of emotional connection through the plants.…”

“…Greenhouses designed for extra-terrestrial environments will be fundamentally different from Earth greenhouses due to technical and scientific requirements. A large external greenhouse on the Moon, for example, will have to incorporate micrometeoroid and radiation shielding because of environmental conditions [17,31]. On Mars, atmospheric pressure is 16 times less than that of Earth.…”

“…Food systems in space have changed to a large degree over the past years. While for the early astronauts "food was just taking medicine" now astronauts are experimenting with "space-cooking" in order to increase the variety ( [17] p. 213, 218). Vickie Kloeris, manager of ISS food systems at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston says, "Food is a comfort that [the astronauts] would like to feel they have some input on or some control over… [It's] psychological-I don't know if we've flown anyone to the station who hasn't been concerned about their food."…”

“…Haeuplik-Meusburger, Peldszus and Holzgethan discuss the Japanese methodology of "Stretching the view" (b) with findings by space psychiatrist Kanas [6,17], who reports that additions of viewing layers can create sightlines that can enlarge the perceived space of space capsules, which psychologically "compensate for the An addition to the classification of greenhouse subsystems as proposed in Fig. 6 would include individual mobile growth units (c).…”