In designing their “artifacts,” the students contemplated depictions of space life in popular culture, such as the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” “The students didn’t quite get to go to space, but it was pretty close.” Ingenious artifacts I wanted to tap into that excitement, so it made sense to teach a class focused on space exploration and architecture. “Don spoke compellingly about the interesting engineering challenges in space, but he also noted how rich an environment it was for creativity. “The show generated so much enthusiasm for the intersection of art and science,” Karwas said. The course was inspired in part by “ Portraits of a Planet: Photographer in Space,” an exhibition curated by CCAM in 2019 that featured photographs taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit while he was a crew member on the International Space Station. “It’s time to begin translating the artifacts of science fiction into the realities of our space exploration future, and the students’ work in this class spoke beautifully to that,” she said. Ekblaw also secured the spots on the research flight for the three “Yale-o-nauts” - a term Meuser coined.Īs the possibility of interplanetary travel and off-world settlement draws closer, it becomes increasingly important to consider how human life will evolve in space, said Ekblaw, who earned her undergraduate degree in physics, mathematics, and philosophy, and a doctorate in space architecture from MIT. The course and the zero-g experience were part of a collaboration between the School of Architecture, the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM), an interdisciplinary research hub that blends traditional arts with science and technology, and the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, a project that supports cross-disciplinary research aimed at democratizing access to space.ĬCAM Director Dana Karwas, a critic at the School of Architecture, established and taught the class with Yale alumna Ariel Ekblaw ’14 B.S., founding director of the Space Exploration Initiative. Puzzle box container designed by Yong Choi As a capstone, three students, including Meuser, deployed their prototypes in zero gravity. They conceived, designed, and fabricated “artifacts” of this future age - objects and devices, such as storage containers, flower vases, and specialized cameras, that might become part of the fabric of off-planet life in the not-too-distant future. “It provided valuable new perspective.”įor the course, students were encouraged to imagine an architecture for a new Space Age in which humans populate the moon, Mars, and orbiting outposts. “An amazing experience,” Meuser said of the flight, which completed 20 parabolas simulating lunar, Martian, and zero gravity (zero-g). The course, offered this spring by the Yale School of Architecture, asked students to consider how humans might prepare for the lived experience of space. Meuser and two Yale School of Architecture classmates were aboard a zero-gravity parabolic research flight, which emulates gravity-free conditions in an aircraft, testing prototype items that they had created as part of a course, “The Mechanical Artifact: Ultra Space.” On a recent flight, Yale student Paul Meuser turned his head to the side and saw his fellow passengers floating about the cabin.
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