Ever since the 1970s, space exploration had been in the back burner. For two decades the world had watched as men cast out into the heavens to be among the gods of old, living in the sky. As Carl Sagan had asked, whether it is a failure of nerve, or a sign of maturity, we haven't been back out past Earth's orbit since the 70s. I always wondered why. Had we seen everything we needed to see? Was it not worth pursuing anymore? Staring at the night sky every night as a kid I refused to believe that the Moon was the only thing possible for human kind.

And until recently, really thanks to the crazy Elon Musk for the revival of space exploration, there has been a new space race: to Mars and beyond, colonizing other planets. And for the first time in decades, it feels like this feat could be done within my lifetime, or at least I like to be optimistic.

And because I'm a UX guy doing a Master's in Human Factors (and a space geek), I began to wonder: if we are going to start transporting people on a 2-month-long journey to Mars, how could/should those space capsules be designed for long-duration missions? So I came across the NPR 8705.2C, NASA's human-rating requirements for space systems. It's fascinating how they came up with these requirements, everything from emergencies, to basic safety, to crew survival, reentry, and medicine. But besides crew safety and emergencies, there isn't really anything on long-duration interplanetary transportation.

Studies have examined stressors in space (Kanas & Manzey, 2008; physical, psychological, interpersonal etc...) and the NASA Space Human Factors Community (SHFE) research overlaps with many disciplines including medicine, psychology, and engineering. I'd be interested in what blueprints could exist for such space capsules. In fact, why not design one myself? Stay tuned...