According to the designers, you might one day wake up to a stormy day, or a rainbow of colour, while a gradual change in hue and luminosity of a ceiling emanating colours help you fall asleep or to rise and shine. Both simulators work to break the monotony and lack of novelty that is brought forth in lunar (or analogous) living conditions.

The prototype habitat incorporates a circadian system along with a weather simulator, to help the astronauts maintain the diurnal rhythm in a simulated manner, and to avoid the effects of a broken, out of sync circadian rhythm. Mockup assembly of the LUNARK habitat Image: Courtesy of SAGA Space Architects In addition to the physical challenges, the team also addressed in their design the mental challenges that would accompany such a mission, and in extension, any such lunar mission too: the lack of stimuli, isolation, confinement, monotony, claustrophobia and psychological stress. A vast white landscape, extreme temperatures, complete remoteness and lack of accessibility, and a near eternal summer ensure the region to be perfectly suited for the team’s research. Arctic Greenland was thus as real as it got for the team.

The challenge was to emulate as closely as possible the hostility of the Moon as a future community, including factoring in an atmospheric vacuum, cosmic radiation, no natural resources and extreme temperature fluctuations. Psychological studies are limited by strict ethical guidelines,” feel the principal architects at SAGA. “The climate is pleasant, help is just around the corner and the missions are short. The need to build such a habitat also arises from the forethought that numerous current analogue lunar missions carried out by the space industry fail to completely simulate actual long-term habitable lunar conditions. Keeping that in mind, with this prototype, the team envisions to design a moon habitat that fits the moon like an organism fits its natural environment, and to corroborate and further their learnings from as close of a scenario to on ground testing as possible.Ī closeup of the folding detail of the LUNARK habitat’s exterior surface (visualisation) Image: Courtesy of SAGA Space Architects If the designs continue to be sterile survival machines, the astronauts who have to live there for months at a time will wither from the lack of nature and sensory stimulation,” states the design team at SAGA. There is no nature, change of scenery, or newness.

In space, your habitat is your entire world. “If humans are to settle on the Moon and other planets, we must be very careful with how we design the homes for these pioneers. In that, LUNARK attempts to stand out by tending to the psychological aspects and toll of the long-term inhabitation of such a habitat. The popularity of space habitats, both practical and conceptual, has caught on with the architectural world, with BIG signing on to develop 3D printed moon homes with ICON, and Elon Musk’s Mars colonising resolute regularly making the news. Top view of the LUNARK habitat Image: Courtesy of SAGA Space Architects

The lunark duo