During 1988 to 1989 the NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program sponsored research and design efforts aimed at developing habitability criteria and at defining a habitability concept as a useful tool in understanding and evaluating dwellings for prolonged stays in extraterrestrial space. The Circulating Auto sufficient Mars-Earth Luxurious Orbital Transport (CAMELOT) was studied as a case in which the students would try to enhance the quality of life of the inhabitants by applying architectural design methodology. The study proposed 14 habitability criteria considered necessary to fulfill the defined habitability concept, which is that state of equilibrium that results from the interaction between components of the Individual Architecture Mission Complex, which allows a person to sustain physiological homeostatis, adequate performance, and acceptable social relationships. Architecture, design development, refinements and revisions to improve the quality of life, new insights on artificial gravity, form and constitution problems, and the final design concept are covered

Alequin, W.

Barragan, A.

Carro, M.

Garcia, F.

Gonzalez, I.

Lopez, D.

Mercado, J. A.

Negron, N.

Rivera, L. A.

Rivera, M.

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

HABITABILITY: CAMEIDT IV
UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
187
N91-18150
INTRODUCTION
Fifty years after the start of the Space Exploration Initiative
there will be a permanent martian ouqxm in operation.
Trausporti_ personnel m it will be accompli_-xl by sending
passengers through a shuttle to a vehicle in a heliocentric
elliptical orbit intersecting both Earth's and Mars' orbits, while
it is in terrestrial proximity. Passengers will land on Mars a
month and a half later through a _ shuttle that will also
exchange Farth-bound passengers to the waxide reaching
perigee again in 22 months.
Such a vehicle was originally conceived at the Aerostmce
Engineering Department of the unive_ty of Michigan in 1987
as part of the NgSA/USRAAdvanced Design Program It was
called CAMELOT, an acronym for Circulating Antosuflicient
Mars-Earth Luxurious Orbital Transport. It housed 17
passengers and a crew of 3 in a 3.6 m x 7.3 m rectangular
cross-section toroid of 34.1 m radius, thus providing a volume
of 284.8 m 3 per person, induding the Closed Environmental
Life Support System (CELSS). It created an artificial gravity of
0.4 g by rotating the ring at a rate of 3.22 rlmx
During 1988-89 the NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program
sponsored research and design efforts at the School of
Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico aimed at
developing habitability criteria and at defining a habitabRity
concept as a useful tool in _ and eval_
dwellings for prolonged stay in extraterrestrial space.
CAMELOT was studied as a case in which the students would
try to enhance the quality of life of the inhabitants by applying
architectural design methodology. Thus, a process of transfor-
mation of the original CAMELOT took place and the CAMELOT
III presented to NASA/USR_s Advanced Design Program
evohre4
HABITABILITYCONCEPrDEFINrrIoN
The study proposed 14 habitability criteria considered
necessary to fulfill the defined habitability concept, which is
"that state of equilibrium that rcsults from the interaction
components of the Individual Architecture Mission
Complex, which allows a person to sustain physiological
homeostasis, adequate performance, and acceptable social
rehtionships."
The habitability criteria can be summarized as follo¢_
1. Personal Indentification: Refers to the possibility of
allowing the individual to influence the arrmagement of his/
her personal _c_
2. Social Interaction: To satisfy the need for companionship.
3. Aleatoric Conditions: To avoid excessive routine,
providing #easaat surprises.
4. Contact with Nature: Is a buffer to soften the impact of
a totally encompassing artificial environment and developing
a new sense of indoor-outdoor.
5. Mental Landscapes: To evoke memories, symbols, and
experiences of terrestriallife.
6. Privacy: A private place for everyone on prolonged stay
in an endosed habitation is necessary to maintain harmony in
interpersonal rehtion.ships and self-reliance.
7. Equalitarian Conditions: Differences among passenger
facilities should reflect purpose and function, as well as
individu_ preference, rather than rank or hierarcby.
8. Variability: Environmental stress can be overcome by
introducing a variety of elements, shapes, decor, color, ma-
terials, and texture&
9. Functionaliw. A "habitable" place must perform well in
the physiological-quantitative sense for the sustenance of
human life beyond the level of mere survival
10. Sensorial Stimulation: Cognitive processes depend on all
senses; therefore, visual stimuli are m be complemented by an
environment rich in positive auditory, tactile, olfactory, and
gustatory factors and enhancements.
11. Music and Environmental Sound: The problem of
absolute silence in extraterrestrial space has to be dealt with
to prevent travelers from being startled by their own visceral
motions and by any minor unexpected noise, as well as to
control access to communications.
12. Stability and Security: Muscle tone and visual-motor
coordination developed under terrestrial conditions will find
alien an environment where there are gravity gradients,
Coriolis and gyroscopic forces, and constant torque on the
anatomy. The environment must be des/gned to compensate
for these conditions.
13. Comfort: Includes conditions such as illumination,
temfmrature, humidity, pressure, and atmospheric composition,
which can be quantitatively determined according to standards.
14. Sense of Orientation: The architectural design of lloors,
walls, and ceilings must create a new sense of up and down,
east and west, north and south to reinforce orientation.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
A series of design factors and architectural strategies were
considered in making the following changes to the original
CAMELOT..
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19910008837 2020-03-19T19:34:52+00:00Z
188 Proceedings of the NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program 6th Summer Conference
I. The single-level toroid ring of a 12" × 24' cross-section
was changed to a two-level, true torus of 24" section diameter,
keeping the 112' rotational radius.
2. Consequently, the volume increased by 41% to allow for
quality of life enhancements.
3. The CELSS was reorganized by moving it to the lower
level of the torus, which is also its outer level, and was com-
partmentalized in a system of drawers that ran along the sides
of the main corridor of the vessel, providing for circumferential
access and trans'_rtation.
4. The areas of the vessel were reorganized into three main
sectors (instead of four ), thus using only three spoke elevators
to provide access to and from the central core. The areas were
organized as the dwelling sector, which includes cabins for
passengers and crew members; the work sector, which
includes laboratories, torus control room, medical center, and
a master CELSS; and the leisure sector, including a galley,
dining-conference room, library-lounge, recreation-gymnasium,
and a chapel.
5. Additionally, the three spoke elevators were placed in a
lobby, under which the safe havens were located, containing
facilities for dwelling while the vessel is under the influence
of extreme radiation because of solar flare at._vity or some
other hazardous condition that would require such protection.
The Safe Havens consist of a series of cubicles measuring
8" × 4' × 4' high that are highly shielded, have food supplies
for at least 24 hr, allow access to communications, computers,
and entertainment, and contain supplies for clothing changes,
a personal toilet, and a couch for sleeping or sitting.
6. The circumferential corridor provided a continuous
means of circulation along the lower level of the entire toms,
flanked on one side by a carousel-type transport for cargo or
injured humans, and a means of reaching every room in the
vessel. Access to rooms was always through vertical ladders and
hatches on the ceiling to promote upper body tonification by
requiring its use for locomotion.
7. Interior gardens were provided as an external CELSS
feature in several two-story locations along the dwelling and
leisure sectors.
REFINFAiEN'rS AND REVISIONS TO
IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE
Considering that several of the habitability criteria were
dependent on qualitative, rather than quantitative factors, it
was deemed necessary to develop them further in order to
ensure and promote greater objectivity in evaluating habitats
for prolonged stay in extraterrestrial space. CAMELOT III was
also found underdesigned as far as (1) the nature of the
enveloping membrane, which was required to withstand
pressures of 2000 lb per sq ft to hold the required internal
atmosphere of the vessel; (2) the assembly process in Earth
orbit for such a vessel (robotics and EVA processes); (3) the
security systems for emergency and accidental conditions of
operation; (4) the need for a detailed example of lighting,
texture, materials, and color scheme to illustrate the
application of the habitability criteria; and (5) the design of
its furniture, which was found to be still too prejudiced by
1-g living conditions.
These provided the working agenda for the Space Research
and Design Studio during academic year 1989-90.
NEW INSIGHTS ON ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY
From the available data, it soon became evident that artificial
gravity is necessary to overcome physiological and even
anatomical deterioration of humans on prolonged stay in space.
During research, however, further insight was gained regarding
the architectural implications of such artificial gravity in
environments, disclosing conditions such as (1) Coriolis and
gyroscopic effects over all bodies in motion (north-south
movements), which are 4000 times greater than those
experienced on the surface of Earth; (2) weight gains and
losses related to east-west movements of significant magnitude
due to the addition or subtraction to the circumferential speed,
which causes the centripetal force that creates the artificial
gravity effect; (3) gravitational gradients due to upward and
downward movements (toward or away from the center of
rotation movements); in fact, due to the conditions of
CAMELOE, the person who would experience 0.4 g on his/
her feet, would also be experiencing 0.37 g on the top of his/
her head; (4) discomfort due to dislocation of reflexes relating
to normal visual input and its correlative input from the inner-
ear fluid motion. (In the September 1962 issue of Astronaut, s,
a chart was published relating the rotational parameters to a
comfort zone for the design of artificial gravity manned space
stations. CAMELOT was designed taking into account such
parameters. However, more recent research has made
corrections in relation to the rotational lYarameters, leaving
CAMELOT just outside the comfort zone.); (5) excessive
variations in local verticals that create confusion and
disorientation; (6) unfamiliar behavior of objects and bodies
that tend to move in straight paths, while the environment or
the frame of reference is rotating. (It is conceivable that in
CAMELOT a body suspended _trained for one second
would not only experience a lateral displacement due to
inertia, but could also rotate up to 58 ° relative to the
envelope); and (7) laige anatomical stresses as a consequence
of such rotational and lateral displacements. For example, if
the passenger were to rely on feet and balance alone to stand
erect, assuming he/she has become accustomed to the moving
environment, the torque exerted by the gluteous maximus
over the trocanter bone in the sagittal plane would be 700
times that of normal anatomical stresses.
FORM AND CONSTRUCI_ON PROBLEMS
Additionally, construction and form diliiculties were found;
such as
1. Large periods of time and numbers of people will be
needed for extravehicular activity (EVA) in low Earth orbit
(LEO) for the assembly of the skin of the vessel.
2. It will be difficult to attain air tightness in the membrane
assembled in orbit due to the great number of joints.
3. Due to fluctuations in the upper atmosphere, orbit decay
is an ever-present danger during LEO assembly until the vessel
has attained enough structural integrity to make orbital
corrections possible.
University of Puerto Rico 189
4. A relatively small torus like CAMELOT (112' radius),
cannot fulfill the promise of spatial continuity because floors
curve up too steeply and are perceived as walls at a distance.
Ceilings bend away in horizons, which seem to meet the floors,
to visually enclose the volume, thus making it _ble to
view really large expanses of areas.
5. The monolithic integrity of the toroidal form does not
lend itself to the modular redundancy principle aimed at
providing subsistence in case of failure of life support systems,
fire, decompression, puncture of the membrane, fracture of the
structure, or any other similar emergency or accident.
6. Extreme limitation of the capacity for passengers, while
requiring 14,000 ft 3 of volume per passenger (including
CELSS), makes the vessel too luxurious or uneconomical.
7. The extreme Coriolis and gyroscopic effects on a
passenger moving on the hallway, as mentioned before, would
require design of handrails and other grab bars to ensure a
means of personal locomotion, using the upper body and not
only the legs as in terrestrial environments, in order to exert
control over such a motion and to relieve the body of extreme
anatomical stresses.
8. The period between the warning of solar flare radiation
and its actual arrival can be as little as 20 sec. Therefore, Safe
Havens cannot be concentrated in a given location, but must
be dispersed throughout the vessel, so that they can be reached
from any location in such a short time.
A NEW VESSEL, SIMILAR CONCEPT
To solve those problems, a new version, called CAMELOT
IV,, has been designed. It consists of 12 shuttle external tank
(ET) envelopes on an array of 3 groups of 4, tethered from
a common core. The passenger capacity has been tripled to
60 persons and therefore its volume has also increased. The
array rotates at a l-kin radius (instead of 30 m) at a speed
of 0.6 rpm (instead of 3.22 rpm). Thus, gravitational and
locomotion conditions become 80-90%, similar to those
experienced on Earth. The tether arms are built using
Buckmiuster Fuller's concept of "tensegrity" and are 1 km long
with a section 30.38 × 30.38 m supporting a solar energy
collector array of 24,000 m 3. They carry up to four elevators
to the microgravity sector in the central hub, which in turn
houses laboratories, the nonrotating interface for passengers,
supplies, and cargo access. That core also houses the
observatory, the command bridge, part of the antenna, and an
ejectable nuclear reactor array.
The idea of tensegrity was promoted by R Buckmiuster
Fuller, the inventor of geodesic geometry, as a means of
achieving very versatile, lightweight structures in which the
members in compression are minimized and are discontinuous,
whereas the members in tension are continuous and very
slender, giving the structures an appearance of floatability.
The solar energy collector array was arrived at after
consideration of several alternatives. The first one was to place
a dish with a radius of 87.4 m around the central core. It was
discarded because it required additional structural support. For
the same reason, the idea of a 4-m-wide ring at 1 km radius
was rejected. The proposed solution of an 8-m-wide strip of
solar panels attached along the length of the tensegrity tether
arms seemed to be the most practical solution.
The orbital trajectory design developed at Michigan was kept
with two new enhancements proposed: (1) the requirement
that the main plane of the vessel that contains the solar energy
panel array will always be facing towards the Sun; (2) that a
24-hr precession motion be introduced to the axis of rotation
to create a sense of daily cycles in the "natural" illumination
through ceiling panels and windows. This would help maintain
the circadian cycles of crew and passengers as they live on
the vessel.
It is envisioned that an antenna array would allow 360 °
rotation so that some would always be facing Earth base,
whereas the others would always be pointing toward the
martian base.
Four shuttle liquid hydrogen external tanks have the
equivalent volume of the original CAMELOT. Conceivably, they
could be recycled and refurbished for use in such a vessel,
rather than wasting their sturdy and airtight skin by burning
it in the atmosphere, which is the current procedure. It is
proposed that they be redesigned so that access be made
possible to their interior for construction of habitable quarters
in a higher orbit, where they could be stored until the time
that NASA is ready to build CAMELOT.
Instead of using counterweights to balance the tethers of
CAMELOF IV,, it is proposed that the capacity of the vessel be
increased in order to subdivide the community in modules
similar in size to the original CAMELOT, so that instead of 20
people, there would be 60, or three arrays of four ETs for 20
people each. Each ET envelope will contain its own CELSS.
_tion into three sectors, dwelling, work, and leisure,
will be conserved to grant a sense of mobility to the
passengers, even within their own particular array. Circulation
between ETs of one array is accomplished through 12' × 12'
cylinder connectors. Transportation between arrays and the
central microgravity core is through the four tensegrity tether
arm elevators.
The dwelling sector ET array now proposed consists of two
ET envelopes (the recycling of a shuttle's liquid hydrogen
tank). They would be organized in three floors. Each dwelling
ET will house 10 cabins, and a meeting area on the center
floor. There will be a torus control room in one of them. Safe
havens will be located in the upper level and a CELSS along
the lower level corridor.
The work sector will consist of only one ET envelope to
be located north of the dwelling sector. It will house four
laboratories, a medical center and a master CELSS, all of which
will be distributed in the two upper floors. The lower floor
will also house a CELSS along the corridor.
The leisure sector ET will also be one tank located south
of the dwellings, containing galley, dining-conference room,
library-lounge area, a double-height gymnasium-recreation
room, and a chapel.
All sectors will have double- and triple-height gardens at the
rounded ends of the envelopes. The recycled conical liquid
oxygen tanks and the collar connectors of the shuttle ETs
could be used for assembling the microgravity laboratories and
other facilities in the core.
190 Peoce_'mgs of tl_ NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program 6th Summer Conference
Y_xkc elevators will consist of _lt_J_uneter cylinders that
will travel on cables located within the t_ tether
structure _ the ET arrays and tbe central core.
THE FINAL CAMEUTr
CAMELOTIVis presented here in a u'llxxtal cordigm_on,
but conceivably it is a form that allows for growth and
expansion. It could be exploded to a multiple-arm array, as
long as tbere is means of countettmlanctng the tcdgts md tbe
spin is controlled to attach additional arms to reach ewntual
toroidal form of I km radius, By that time the stagt ofghe Space
Exploration initiative will be a subject _ study for htmortm_
CAMELOT would then have 108 arrays o_4 ETs and w_utd
be trm'_xting a population of over 2000 peopte betwcgn
Mars and Earth, two of the planets inhabited by a mult*plane-
ta_yhumanspcdes reachingfor tbe starx
APPENDIX
illustrations pe_ to Camelot IV are _ in this
Append_
_ authors induded W.Alequin, A. Barral_an,M. Carro,
E Gat_a, L Goo_ez, J.A. Mercado, N. Negt_ D. _ LA.
Rtvera, M. Rivera,J. Rodriguez,O. Rodriguez, J. S/mchez,E Soto,
H. Tottts, and E Vizcaya. They were assisted by teaching
mmmats O. m_det and r, Menado, and Prof. gF. Andino.
Radial g's CAMELOT0.4
.035 0.1 .35 3.5 10
x x _
x*. x
\ \\N,
5O
I lXl I I\
•1 1 ] 10
CAMELOT
3.22 RPM
Angularvelocity (RPM)
1
2
o
5
10 _.
g
g
2o_
0..
Rotational Patangte. and Comfort Zone
Camelot L Xx_tc_gu'lc
CAMELOT 3.22
RPM
lliGliltdll
VELII¢ITT 1.C
(rpun)
0.1
0.1 0_4 1,0
CAMELOT
CENTRIPETALRCCELERATIOHIg/
10
Camelot If. Axonometric Artificial Gravity Parameters
University of Puerto Rico
191
Camelot IV
Dwelling Area Floor Plan
Master CELSS
ET Array on Tether End Meeting Area
]92 Proceedings of tl_ NASAIUSRA Advanced Design Program 6th Summer Conference
ETControlSystem
lab Control Area F-alley
University of Puerto Rico i 93
_- "_ :<i:'t
The Final Camelot
Dining-_e Room
S/-/IIH I \n i
Gym



Habitability: CAMELOT 4

Habitability: CAMELOT 4

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