Lighting the way

Frontiers April 2014 Issue

Lighting the way Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft: A giant leap for the passenger experience By Kelly Kaplan Inside the next Boeing-built spacecraft to carry people into orbit, former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson marveled at the cool, new-look interior. At a glance, the outside of the full-scale mock-up of the CST-100 spacecraft in Houston is reminiscent of the Apollo command module that carried U.S. astronauts to the moon and back almost a half-century ago. But the interior of the CST-100 is worlds apart from that of the utilitarian Apollo and will provide passengers with a far richer experience, much as Boeing’s newest jetliner cabins were designed to reconnect passengers with the magical experience of flight. The spacecraft’s interior lighting system, in fact, incorporates cabin design concepts developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes for the 787 Dreamliner as well as the new 737 Boeing Sky Interior. The same kind of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, used in the passenger cabin of the advanced 787 bathed the interior of the CST-100 in a pleasing blue glow as Ferguson and Boeing Space Exploration engineer Tony Castilleja checked out the spacecraft’s easy-to-use controls and instrumentation, all the while lying on their backs in specially designed seats—seats that can be easily and quickly stowed once the spacecraft is in orbit and no longer needed. “Previous spacecraft were very much like military aircraft, very utilitarian. They were not built for comfort or aesthetics,” Ferguson said PHOTO: Systems engineer Tony Castilleja, foreground, and former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson check out the control panel in the full-scale CST-100 mock-up in Houston. BOB FERGUSON/BOEING 20 Frontiers April 2014


Frontiers April 2014 Issue
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