Saying Farewell To Space Architect Constance Adams

Author: Kiona N. Smith / Source: Forbes

Space architect Constance Adams, who spent her career designing habitats for humans in Earth orbit and on the surface of Mars, died on Monday, June 24 at the age of 53.

Adams is best known for her work, with space architect Kriss Kennedy, on the inflatable Kevlar Transit Habitat, which had once been intended to attach to the International Space Station as 12,000-cubic-foot expansion of the crew’s living and working space.

TransHab would fold up into a compact bundle for launch and then, once in orbit, fill with air and unfold into a three-level cylinder with six bedrooms, common living areas, a galley, a sick bay, a work space, and an exercise level. Her role centered on the interior structure and design of the module, with a focus on how humans would interact with, and be affected by, their environment.

“She turned the concept of an inflatable – a flat tire, essentially – into a viable interior structure,” former NASA space architect Marc Cohen told the New York Times.

The human aspect of design was a central theme of Adams’ career, from her early work on a Martian habitat called BioPlex to her contributions to the design of NASA’s X-38 experimental crew return vehicle (cancelled in 2002 due to budget cuts), to her input as a consultant on Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceport, Spaceport America, in New Mexico.

“My job is forcing me to think more fundamentally than I ever have about what it means…

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