Advanced Design Studio, Sharples

The Architecture of Rocket Science: Spaceport Earth

“Failure is not an option” Gene Kranz, Flight Director for Apollo 13 Mission

Travel is an important component of our daily life. Space travel is the ultimate travel experience. It should not necessarily be a high-tech, unidirectional, compartmentalized experience. Travel should merge with our daily lives.

The development of new spacecraft platforms like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip 2 and Bigelow’s Space Hotel, along with the innovations of private space firms such as SpaceX, XCOR, Armadillo, and Blue Origin, are focused on the immediate possibilities of getting private passengers and commercial freight into space. Just as the flight efficiencies of the traditional wing/fuselage model are now being questioned by the air and space industry, a new model is emerging of private enterprises that are openly challenging the traditional publicly funded models of space travel. Innovative concepts are being proposed and evaluated for the next generation flight platforms which will have significant impact on how we, as travelers, experience space flight. In addition, the impending end of the shuttle program and new NASA contract structures will result in an increasing reliance on the commercial space industry to launch satellites and transport freight and people into orbit and beyond.

Similar to the airport, the spaceport has the potential of operating at multiple scales. A place of global and extraterrestrial connection - an ecosystem operating at multiple flow scales, space scales, program scales - the spaceport should assume an important public role of the new metropolis. Are spaceports to remain peripheral to major urban centers, as they have for the past four decades? Or will they become self sustaining urban centers of their own? These changes will have profound impact on how we think about our spaceports, not only as instruments of travel but as destinations in and of themselves - less as unidirectional infrastructures and more as multifunctional environments - making them not only an important gateway to our cities but also a possible catalyst for re-forming the city.

As a point of departure into this new typology, the studio will utilize the research, analysis and design explored last spring semester in the development of a next generation airport as its frame of reference. It will develop a program and architecture for a spaceport that will support suborbital and orbital commercial space flight. The studio will explore and critique historic and existing air travel narratives. Students will utilize contemporary methods of modeling to forge innovative paradigms in order to revitalize existing space travel infrastructure and to critique a programmatic menu unique to this infrastructure. Particular emphasis will be placed on seeking out current and next-generation aviation and ecological models with the desire to inform the evolution of these new formations.

We will pose questions, such as: How can current and future innovation in space flight assist in creating new models of travel and experience? How can earlier models of passenger air travel be critiqued to offer possible suggestions of similar experiences for suborbital and orbital space flight? What role will public policy, regulations, and governmental agencies, such as NASA or the FAA, have in fostering or limiting this commercial initiative? What are some possible economic models for regional spaceports? Are they viable? How will this emerging market sector affect urban and regional economies and ecologies?

The space race of the 60’s generated an enormous energy and enthusiasm with the American public. Today, the idea that suborbital and orbital air travel could be in reach during our lifetime could once again capture the public’s imagination in a way that hasn’t been seen in this country since the early days of flight.

The studio will focus on three hypothetical sites for spaceport platforms and draw in other programs and infrastructures which could support and sustain innovative growth within the spaceport complex.

Site A: Calverton, NY (Long Island)

• Proximity to NYC optimal for point-to-point hub
• Existing unutilized air infrastructure
• Proximately to an existing aerospace industry
• No space infrastructure
• Congested region and airspace
• Suboptimal location for orbital launch

 
Site B Cape Canaveral, FL

• Extensive underutilized infrastructure
• Suborbital and orbital potential
• Extensive regional space history
• Extensive regional industry support
• Less predictable weather conditions
• Additional program opportunities (training, education, entertainment)

 
Site C Las Cruces, NM

• Uncongested region and airspace
• Optimal weather conditions
• Flexibility and extensibility (“blank slate”)
• Extensive regional industry support
• Extensive regional space history
• Additional program opportunities (training, education, entertainment)
• Pre-existing regulated conditions (WSMR, Holloman AFB)

 
Each site has a unique infrastructure that could serve as an incubator for diverse business opportunities such as hospitality (hotels, spas, etc.), culture and entertainment, regional transportation hub, research (energy, robotics, pharmaceuticals, etc.), education (such as a science center campus), and astronautical/aeronautical training (flight simulation, centrifuge, zero-g). The goal is to develop an infrastructure that is flexible to multiple aircraft and rocket types that will provide services for space tourism rides (single point), intercontinental space flights (point to point) and flights to orbital space stations and colonization on the moon, while also responding specifically to local conditions.

The amount of work that will be required to complete this studio successfully necessitates that the students work in teams of two to develop their proposals. All students are expected to use a variety of design tools, sketching, diagramming, rendering, drawing, physical and virtual modeling with equal emphasis. The first three weeks of the semester will focus on historic precedents, travel narratives and site analysis. During the first few weeks tutorials in use of environmental and parametric modeling will be given by technology members from SHoP. In week four the studio will travel to NASA, Spaceport America and Space Florida to meet with scientists, engineers and planners. Upon return you will then develop three separate schematic vignettes each framed by a specific question or headline that clearly identifies the desired effects each proposal is to achieve. This will take us up to week eight mid-term review where you present the story boards of each vignette. Upon return form spring break each team will choose a component or condition from one of the three narrations to develop as a design proposal. During these weeks each team will develop digital and physical models and construction strategies to formalize there design. Weeks fourteen and fifteen will be dedicated for final presentation material. Final review will be the week of April 27th.