Artworks for Astronauts: Limits within Limitlessness,a Transdisciplinary Working Field for Artists

Abstract

This research project combines the arts with human space exploration. It looks into the benefits of art and its implementation in future space habitats and poses the question of how artwork for astronauts should be designed. First human flights to our neighbouring planet Mars were chosen here as a field of study. These flights are still projects of future importance; nonetheless, their feasibility has already been intensively explored. Beside the physiological limitations, the unique challenges of these flights are grounded in the psychological and socio-psychological impairments on the individual, since, for most of their travelling time, future astronauts will live trapped and far away from their home planet in a very small transfer habitat.