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Futuristic Space Habitat Solves Problems With Human Space Travel

Elizabeth Lee

   COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - Fifty years ago, the first humans landed on
   the moon. Could longer space flights to Mars and beyond happen 50 years
   in the future? What new technologies are needed for future space
   missions?

   An aerospace engineer at Texas A&M University has been working on a
   space habitat for long-term space travel. The project is funded by
   NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, which fosters ideas
   that could revolutionize future space-related missions.

   "The idea is to make a research facility that you could modify things
   as you go," said Robert Skelton,Texas A&M Engineering Experiment
   Station (TEES) eminent professor in the Department of Aerospace
   Engineering. He was part of the team that designed the control systems
   for Skylab, NASA's first space station.

   He said his latest idea, a space habitat, might begin as a tourist
   destination.

   "There's a lot of folks that would pay a lot of money for a honeymoon
   in space," he said.

   As the habitat is enlarged in space, the long-term goal is to solve
   problems astronauts have been facing since Alan Shepard became the
   first American in space in the summer of 1961.

   "We've been in space for 60 years, but in Zero-G (gravity) or
   microgravity, and it's very unhealthy,"Skelton said. He explained, "The
   pressure of the fluid in your body feels gravity, so the pressure is
   higher in your feet than in your eye. So in space, the pressure is the
   same everywhere in the body, and that's too great for the eyes. It
   flattens the eye. So, all astronauts go into space with 20/20 vision,
   but few come back that way."

   That is just one example of health problems that occur in zero gravity.
   Skelton's habitat would rotate to create gravity, provide radiation
   protection, food for sustainability and growth capability.

   This space habitat is designed with the concept of
   "tensegrity."Tensegrity is a combination of tension and integrity,
   similar to how the body moves with muscles and bones that strengthen
   each other.Skelton envisions the habitat being built using some
   materials outside the Earth.

   "We want to design robots that can build tensegrity structures in space
   using materials from space regolith from the moon or regolith from the
   asteroids," said Skelton.

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