Rooms with a view: Astronauts have design ideas for new space stations

[Admin]

Newly returned International Space Station astronauts say they were impressed with their quarters, but new tech and design thinking could push new commercial stations even further.

Rooms with a view: Astronauts have design ideas for new space stations : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The space near-zero gravity environment is so non-intuitive to the people who have not experienced it that I think at least a few designers should be given trips to the ISS before they produce new designsintended to increase human physical and psychological comfort.

I still remember the U.S. Congressional politicians criticizing NASA for its "million dollar toilet seat" without understanding that the astonauts had to tape plastic baggies to their bottoms - and still missed catching a few terds, which then flew around the station interior and needed to be hunted down and captured. There is even audio recording of that in NASA files, as an astronaut exclaimes "There goes another G__ D___ turd" in the middle of a recorded exchange. But, NASA does not publicize the indelicate human physical need aspects of space travel. - so most people are oblivious to the real issues.

 

[billslugg]

Yes, the technology involved in preventing "unwanted flying objects" in zero gravity is very expensive.
Also, in this case, and the case of the "$600 hammer" immortalized by Al Gore's "Hammer Awards", much of the cost is attributable to accounting methods.
In any large project, overhead and development costs are shared equally by each unit purchased. As a "made up example", a program might have a million dollars of development costs and each of 1000 units purchased is allocated $1,000 in those costs. Instead of an engine costing $100,000, it would be accounted for by a charge of $101,000. Similarly, a wingnut would not show up at $1.00 but at $1,001.