Currently in the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Interim Design Center parking lot, students are constructing a 30 foot experimental structure that expands on the notion of housing astronauts in space. Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the year-long research and experimentation project challenges students to design a vertical habitat capable of housing four astronauts in space for a period of 60 days. Not only is this an extreme case of micro-living, but to design a living quarters with no orientation, where walls, floors and ceilings are non-existent, is unworldly.
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This experience has inspired some Cal Poly Pomona students to think beyond the traditional architecture career path and pursue internships with NASA. Those students have landed a voluntary internship with NASA to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a federally funded research and development center that specializes in the construction and operation of robotic planetary spacecraft.
“It opens up my perspective to what you can do with a design degree like this,” said fourth-year architecture student, Garrett Sanne to The Poly Post. “That it doesn’t necessarily have to be architecture, you could be designing space habitats. You don’t really look outside the box until you open yourself up to something like this.”
The video above is an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory by Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA.
via The Poly Post
