Civil Engineering Association

Architecture for Astronauts: An Activity-based Approach

The first part of this book introduces all relevant American and Russian realized extra-terrestrial habitats: The Apollo Spacecraft and Lunar Module, the Space Shuttle Orbiter, and the Space Stations; Salyut, Skylab, Mir, as well as the International Space Station. It provides an overview of the architecture and configuration, highlights specific issues concerning the interior layout and compares the spatial and time allocation of human activities. Drawings and diagrams facilitate comparison.

The main part of the book concentrates on the investigation of the relationship between the environment and its users. This method evaluates and summarizes all the selected habitats by means of the human activities in relation to the characteristics of the built environment (Sleep, Hygiene, Food, Work and Leisure). In addition to analyzing the available data, it integrates the astronauts' personal experiences into the evaluation.

The author conducted structured interviews with astronauts with a special focus on human activity. The book confronts the findings from relevant literature and analysis - based on crew transcripts, spacecraft drawings and mission images - with the personal experiences of the users: the astronauts and cosmonauts. To facilitate orientation and to ease comparison with architectural drawings and diagrams each category was assigned a specific colour. Design directions for each category conclude each chapter.