Reconditioned containers into living places in the universe

A container built more than 15 years ago to transport equipment into space will be "recycled" into a cosmological ecosystem structure, allowing astronauts to live in long-term missions.

This is part of a project by the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) to build a "space port" in Moon's orbit, where astronauts can live for up to a year.

NASA aims to bring this facility into operation in the mid-2020s, from which it can gain experience and develop the capacity needed to explore further in the Solar system, especially to the mission. Fire.

Recycled space station simulation image from cargo container.(Photo: LOCKHEED MARTIN).

Airline Lockheed Martin, a NASA contractor based in Colorado - USA, announced last week that the refurbishment of the container. The appearance of the container will not change much. It is still a large cylindrical metal container, about 6.5m long and 4.5m in diameter. Inside the container will be turned into a living area, with fully equipped office spaces for astronauts, a fitness area and warehouse space to store food, water and of course cannot lack of toilets. According to Bill Pratt, Lockheed Martin's representative, these "home" equipment includes "all you need to live and have fun in space".

"There are things that will be very easy when you live at home . It's common to simply call the family completely differently when we're out on Earth's orbit," Pratt said in a press release. - "When building this habitat, we have to operate a different mindset, like long trips to Mars, to be safe, healthy and effective."

Called Donatello , the recently refurbished space container is one of three built by the Italian Space Agency in the 1990s to serve the mission of transporting equipment to the International Space Station (ISS). Donatello has been transferred to NASA's Kennedy Space Center since 2001 but has not been used once, while its two "brothers" Leonardo and Raffaello have made some missions to ISS.

Lockheed Martin plans to revamp Donatello at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida within 18 months. The company is one of six US companies working with NASA to build ecological structures for the project for astronauts to join missions on the Moon's orbit, a much more modest goal. compared to the goal of bringing people to Mars in the 2030s.

However, according to The Washingtom Post, this mission is supposed to be more technically feasible in the short term with appropriate budgets.