Living quarters on NASA’s Gateway lunar station will be so small that astronauts won’t be able to stand up straight inside, an architect involved in the station’s design has said.
NASA and its international partners plan to begin construction of Portal station into lunar orbit over the next few years. When completed toward the end of the decade, the space lab will be about one-sixth the size of the International Space Station (ISS), featuring two habitable modules that will force crew members to give up personal space.
“The International Habitation module will have a habitable area of about 8 cubic meters [280 cubic feet] and you’ll have to share it with three others,” René Vaclavicek, space architect and design researcher at Austria-based LIQUIFER Space Systems, told Czech Space Week Conference in Brno (opens in new tab), Czech Republic, Nov 30, 2022 “In other words, it will be a room 2 by 2 by 2 meters [6.6 by 6.6 by 6.6 feet]. And you are locked in there. There are other rooms, but they are not bigger and not many.”
Connected: Watch the construction of NASA’s next-generation Gateway lunar space station in a concept video
Vaclavicek participated in the design phase of European-built international habitation module (opens in new tab), or the I-Hab, which is one of Gateway’s two habitable elements, essentially bedrooms combined with lab space (the other is Housing and logistics post (opens in new tab), HALO developed by Northrop Grumman in the USA).
When working on the design, the architects had to bow to the practical requirements dictated by the nature of the project, Vaclavicek said. Their initial hopes for larger modules offering a larger volume of habitable space, similar to that of the International Space Station, had to be abandoned due to the inability to launch massive components to moon.
“We started in the first phase with a cylinder with external dimensions similar to what we know from the ISS,” Vaclavicek said. “It’s about 4.5m [15 feet] in diameter and 6m [20 feet] long. But due to mass restrictions, we had to shrink it to 3m [10 feet] in the external dimensions. And that left us with an internal cross-section of just 1.2m by 1.2m [4 feet by 4 feet]. Most of the interior volume is taken up by machines, so it’s basically just a corridor where you have to turn 90 degrees if you want to stretch out.”
The International Space Station with its 7.2 by 7.2 ft (2.2 by 2.2 m) interior where astronauts could even perform exercises for space gymnasticsoffers a luxurious experience compared to what awaits lunar explorers on Gateway.
“[The I-Hab] it’s actually just a cylinder with a hatch on both ends and two hatches on the side and a corridor running through the longitudinal axis,” Vaclavicek said. “Even if you want to get away, it’s already quite difficult, you have to interrupt whatever you’re doing at the moment , to let the other pass you by.”
Crew quarters on NASA’s Gateway lunar station will be so small that astronauts won’t be able to stand up straight. (Image: ESA/NASA/ATG Medialab)
Somehow, the architects managed to include about 53 cubic feet (1.5 cubic m) of personal space protected by closable doors for each crew member living in the i-Hab. But trying to stay aboard the Gateway will be a challenge for more reasons than just the cramped living quarters. As Vaclavicek said, most of the module would be occupied by noisy and vibrating life support technology, the constant buzzing of which would likely grate on the nerves of most mere mortals.
“You’re basically living in an engine room,” Vaclavicek said. “The life support systems are noisy, they have a lot of ventilators, and you only have 1.5 cubic meters of personal space where you can close the door and keep the noise down.”
Architects are exploring ways to ease pressure on the crew and make the experience aboard Gateway more enjoyable, but they continue to hit technical limitations, including those of the launch vehicles available to send the module to its destination.
“We always get asked, ‘Where’s the window?'” Vaclavicek said. “On the International Space Station, the most popular place where astronauts spend every free minute is the window. But there are technical issues associated with it. The moon is thousands of times further away [than the ISS] and every window is a breach of the continuity of the construction. Also, glass is very heavy, so the window is the first thing to come undone.”
However, there will be smaller windows on the portal located in the ESPRIT refueling module, which will also be built in Europe.
While the US HALO module could be launched as early as 2024, the I-Hab’s trip to the moon is not expected until 2027. Currently, Vaclavicek said, the team is working on a Critical Design Review, an important milestone before production can begin of hardware, and began building a full-scale mock-up to test human interaction with the habitat environment.
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