NASA NTRS2005
Surface habitats play a centric role with respect to integration of the crew operations and supporting surface systems for external operations on the moon and Mars. Up to now the only planetary surface habitat NASA has ever developed is the 2-person, 3-day duration Lunar Module from the 1960 s-era Apollo Program. Today s National Vision for Space Exploration pushes far beyond the safety, performance and operational requirements of the Lunar Module, and NASA needs to develop a basis for making habitat design decisions Experience has shown that using mockups very early in a project s life cycle is extremely beneficial, providing data that influences requirements for human design, volumetrics, functionality, systems hardware and operations. Evaluating and comparing a variety of habitat configurations will provide NASA with a cost-effective basis for trades to support lunar and Martian habitat design selection. This paper describes the NASA project that recently has been created to undertake the development and evaluation of a series of planetary surface habitat mockups. This project is in direct response to the Advanced Space Platforms and Systems (ASPS) Element Program s request for novel systems approaches for robust and reconfigurable habitation systems.