New Spacecraft Would Take Off on a Runway and Fly Directly to Space https://futurism.com/the-byte/radian-one-space-plane?utm_campaign=trueanthem_AI&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
Lockheed Martin’s habitat is designed to form one module of NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway, a mini space station that would orbit the moon.Courtesy Lockheed Martin
NASA’s first crewed mission to Mars may still be years away, but already we’re getting a glimpse of the sort of habitat that astronauts could use as a staging point for a multimonth voyage to the red planet, an asteroid or another deep-space destination.
Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin unveiled an early prototype of its deep-space habitat last week at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The cylindrical module — a reworked cargo container from the space shuttle era — is about 22 feet long and 16.5 feet wide. That’s much bigger than the Russian Soyuz capsules that take astronauts to and from the International Space Station but tiny compared to the space station itself, which is made up of 16 pressurized modules that collectively cover an area bigger than a football field.
Given the habitat’s size, life in space will most likely be a bit cramped for the four astronauts who could live there for up to 60 days before shipping out to deep space.
“It’s a lot like being in an RV, where you’re constantly reconfiguring the space,” said Bill Pratt, who manages the deep-space habitat program at Lockheed Martin. “The couch and the table become your bed, and you’re constantly moving and shuffling things around.”
In addition to sleeping quarters, the habitat will have a toilet, exercise equipment, storage space, an area for science experiments and a galley.
The habitat is designed to form one module of NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway, a miniature space station that would orbit the moon and serve as a way station for lunar missions or journeys deeper into the cosmos.
Lockheed’s prototype is the refurbished Donatello cargo container that was originally designed to fit inside the space shuttle’s cargo bay and ferry supplies to and from the ISS. Donatello never flew in space, but its two sister modules made several trips aboard the shuttle. One, dubbed Leonardo, is now a permanent “space closet” attached to the space station.
Lockheed is one of six companies awarded a combined $65-million contract from NASA to design a deep-space habitat as part of the agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program, which aims to foster commercial developments for space exploration.
In the beginning, there was mud. The earliest human dwellings were constructed of nothing more than mud-and-straw bricks baked in the sun. The ancient Romans were the first to experiment with concrete, mixing lime and volcanic rock to build majestic structures like the Pantheon in Rome, still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world .
Over the centuries, engineers and architects have devised ever-new ways to build taller, stronger and more beautiful creations using game-changing materials like steel girders, earthquake-proof foundations and glass curtain walls.
But what does the future hold for construction technology? Will there come a day when noisy construction crews are replaced by swarms of autonomous nanobots? Will the cracks in concrete foundations one day miraculously heal themselves, or gas stations be replaced by electric cars running on self-charging roads?
From the desk of Zedie.
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