Sustainable Life Beyond Earth. How to Enhance Habitat Comfort for Space Travelers.

In the coming decades, the human presence in Space will expand significantly from professional astronauts/cosmonauts to new users, private and commercial space travelers. This trend will require the rethinking of the Architecture and Design of habitats, their overall structure and internal layout leading to associated challenges of how to customize and shape these internal spaces and ensure the growing need of well-being of the on-board crew and passengers who may undertake the off-Earth exploration. In this context, the role of Space Architecture is fundamental, which as we know, is the theory and practice that integrates the disciplines and their relevant activities for designing and building human environments and habitation in Outer Space. The aspects of habitability and human factors thus require a new, deeper attention and investigation for the well-being and living/working conditions for the end-users. Moreover, the versatile approach to Human System Integration (as referred to NASA standard), has evolved based on the global heritage of applied methodologies, design processes, requirements and specifications developed throughout various space missions, as well as the progress of frontier technological development that led to improved analyses and related necessary experimentations, simulations, etc. This paper relates to the design investigation of space habitats also by the use of mixed reality presentation, which is aiming to improve the psychophysical well-being of astronauts/space travelers, and their activity efficiency during the missions in space. In particular, this multidisciplinary approach integrates the expertise in advanced design, applied frontier technologies, environmental psychology and aerospace engineering. This synergy aims to go beyond the mere ‘functionality’ of a space habitat and improves the overall experience of multiple users. The adoption and implementation of this interdisciplinary approach in the design of space habitats, in the context of Space Economy and related to its applications, aims to integrate the multifaceted concept of Made in Italy with its manufacturing excellency and expressions of outstanding lifestyle for the users' wellbeing. The project includes the novel approach of sustainability enhancing the tangible and intangible aspects of circularity. As an expected outcome, this paper aims to demonstrate design proposals that deal with the psychophysical challenges and the optimal use of spaces, linked to Life in Space, outlining an innovative path for the future exploration of Space.