'Space Tourists And Nasa Astronauts Both Require Similar Services'
Food & Hospitality World|September 2017

A space hotel design by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently won a prestigious NASA graduate design competition. Mathhew Moraguez and George C Lordos of MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the Strategic Engineering Research Group explain the design concept.

Sudipta Dev
'Space Tourists And Nasa Astronauts Both Require Similar Services'

What are the key aspects of your space hotel design that attributed in winning the prestigious competition by NASA ?

We feel that one key benefit of our proposal for NASA is technology development at reduced and shared costs. The cost reduction comes from our engineering design which emphasises modularity, standardisation of interfaces and open access to companies of all sizes to provide all kinds of products and services on MARINA. The cost sharing arises because NASA can rent only a small part of the MARINA station, fly astronauts there and perform experiments to develop technology needed for the journey to Mars. The concept works well because the space tourists and NASA astronauts both require similar services while in orbit, i.e. life support, food, gym, etc. These capabilities would be improved over time and would help enable the journey to Mars.

What is the commercial viability of your design, particularly with so much talk going on, and investment being made in space tourism initiatives ?

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