Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work in space?
To find out, you can track down an astronaut or cosmonaut who spent time on the Russian space station Mir. Or, you can ask one of the more than 270 individuals who have spent time at the International Space Station, which NASA boasts is larger than a six-bedroom house with six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym and a 360 degree gym. See the bay window.
You can also grab some popcorn or some freeze-dried “astronaut” ice cream and watch a movie or TV show – such as “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Ad Astra” or “Star Trek” : Deep Space Nine” – imagines what life would be like on a fictional space station.
Want more aviation news? Sign up for TPG’s free bi-weekly Aviation newsletter.
Or you can fly to the Seattle Aviation Museum to visit”Home Extraterrestrial.” This is an exhibition opening in early June that focuses on space stations past, present and future and includes more than 50 artifacts, models, spaceflight objects and bronzes. dress.
According to Geoff Nunn, exhibition developer and year-round space curator at the Museum of Flight, the theme of long life in space is timely. Currently, there are two space stations in Earth orbit: China’s Tiangong space station and the ISS, which has hosted a rotating group of astronauts since November 2000 and will retire around 2030.
“NASA and international partners are looking to transition long-term space operations to private space station companies,” Nunn said. And several companies are developing successors to the International Space Station that will be privately owned and operated.” “So over the next decade or so, we could see a huge change in the way we live and work in space.”
More information for AvGeek: A behind-the-scenes look at Southwest’s Dallas headquarters
Nunn said for this exhibit, the museum wanted to go beyond the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) aspects of life and work on the space station. It aims to dig deeper into cultural influences and human passions with the nitty-gritty details of what living and working in space can actually entail.
Daily newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers to get breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive offers from TPG experts
To do that, the exhibition returns to the early science fiction stories that theorized and predicted what space stations would be like. It advances the history of actually living and working in space, starting with Skylab and Salyut in the 1970s and up to the current ISS. The exhibition also looks to the near future and what the space community will look like.
Exhibits in the exhibit will include scale models of both historical and conceptual space stations, including a model of the ISS built by students at the University of Washington that features solar panels that synchronize and rotate with The sun on the real ISS.
“Home Beyond Earth” will also include in-flight clothing from all major space station types that have gone into orbit (except China’s Tiangong space station). It will feature artifacts that have flown through space, such as Award-winning Space Cupa zero-gravity coffee cup designed for NASA at Portland State University and tested on the ISS.
A test version of a 3D printer called Refabricator, which is about the size of a dorm room refrigerator and was launched to the ISS in 2018, will be on display. Nicole Stott’s “The Wave” – the first watercolor painted by an astronaut in space aboard the ISS in 2009 – will also be on display.
To help future astronauts better visualize what living and working in space will be like, the exhibit will issue digital cards or tokens inviting visitors to select the space station of their choice. choose and personalize their itinerary. For those who want a souvenir of their journey, there will be space travel posters featuring both real and imaginary space stations.
So, is the Museum of Flight’s space curator ready to live and work in the space station?
“I think if we could get a pretty comfortable space up there, I might consider it,” Nunn said.
“Home Beyond Earth” opens June 8 at Seattle’s Museum of Flight and will run through January 20, 2025.
Related reading:
