Viability of Common Habitat Areas for Partial Gravity and Microgravity

As space exploration efforts advance towards returning to the Lunar surface and later to Mars, new challenges emerge, and habitation becomes one of them. Having a custom manufacturing line for deep space transit and surface habitats (the Moon or Mars) implies a longer design and production line. Instead of spending great amounts of money and time on custom designs, why not explore a common development where the interior architectural functions can be multifunctional, capable of being adapted into distinct gravity conditions? As a matter of mitigating this challenge the viability of habitat functions, being capable of commonality between partial gravity and microgravity, is investigated. The viability is verified through human factors assessments based on the chosen design criteria: human body orientation, human anthropometrics, and the geometry and volume required within the living space. A common habitat design from the Advanced Concepts Office (ACO) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has been taken as the case-study for commonality refinement. The design refinement has been done based on the design tool created grounded on the design criteria: a catalogue of design requirements for partial gravity and microgravity. The case-study habitat is designed in a safe haven configuration, meaning that the habitat is composed of two pressurized node modules (herein after referred to as nodes) and if one of them were to fail and lose pressure the crew would be able to survive in the remaining node. Furthermore, the case-study habitat is capable of being adapted to two different layout configurations: (#1) a habitat that could be used both as a deep space transport (DST) in microgravity and as a surface partial gravity hab; and (#2) a habitat that could be used both as a DST in artificial gravity and as a surface partial gravity habitat. For the purpose of this investigation only layout configuration #1 has been chosen.