Paper short abstract:

Dwelling in space will demand carefully planned forms of life for inhabitants of off-Earth bases and crews of multi-year missions. Considering how humans create and relate to their environment when learning to dwell will provide guidance toward success in establishing human communities in space.

Paper long abstract:

The human sphere will soon extend to dwelling in outer space. Groups will live for extended periods on the Moon and Mars. Crews in long-duration-space-flight (LDSF) will explore deep space on missions lasting for years, even decades, possibly lifetimes. These groups will not live in Earth-like environments. Nor will their ecosystems, social systems, and communal structures afford them all of Earth's material, spatial, and physical options. Dwelling in space will require careful planning of material resources, ecologies, and sociocultural structures, to maintain well-being within the new communities. Little may be left to chance or open to interpretation so not to risk deterioration of team cohesion. It will be as necessary as any mechanical plans, to consider and frame the "notions of beauty and bodily comfort and social propriety" into which the off-Earth humans "may learn to dwell, to feel at home" (Glassie, 1999). However, we must also consider these communities in the light of Heidegger's assertion: "The real dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell" (Heidegger, 1971). Glassie's considerations of vernacular craft and architecture, and Heidegger's discussions of building, dwelling, and poetry, prompt suggestions for constraints and needs to guide planning for a variety of situations at increasing distances from Earth. The author's studies of psychosocial and material needs relating to clothing for LDSF provide a point of departure for how to design frameworks into which these small-group cultures may constructively develop forms of life.