Aluminum for spacecraft interiors is passé; what space-farers apparently want is wood. That’s the bet from Vast, the makers of Haven-1, the world’s first commercial space station set to be placed in low-Earth orbit by the SpaceX Falcon rocket next year. First paying customers will be getting on board in 2026, and judging by the final designs just released of the station’s cozy interior, they'll feel right at home.
Helping to add softness to an interior previously more focused on function than style, Vast has used fine-grained maple wood—a contemporary favorite of home interior designers, chosen for its ability to add warmth and elegance to any space, and now space space.
Naturally, the maple wood slats are there for aesthetic appeal more than anything else, but Haven-1 has also developed other creature comforts, including a puffy space duvet that should help to encourage a good night's rest—not something easily achieved in space.
“This is not just any old duvet,” says Hillary Coe, Vast’s chief design and marketing officer. “It’s a duvet that inflates, creating this equal pressure up against you which allows for a beautiful, comfortable night’s rest.”
According to Vast, the patent-pending sleep system is roughly the size of a queen bed, and should accommodate side and back-sleepers alike.
“Buzz-cut astronaut-dudes giggle when they come down to our office and see the sleep system—they’d loved to have had one [on their work-a-day missions],” says Coe, who spent five years as head of design at SpaceX before jumping spaceship to Vast. She's also held design positions at Starlink, Google, and Apple.
Eyes on the Stars
Vast is a Southern California startup founded by crypto billionaire Jed McCaleb, a programmer who, in 2010, transformed his Mt. Gox card trading site into the first major Bitcoin exchange. He is worth $2.9 billion according to Forbes’ Billionaires List. McCaleb founded Vast in 2021 to develop artificial gravity space stations.
Early hires included Kyle Dedmon, former SpaceX construction vice president; systems engineer Tom Hayford who has worked for Relativity Space and SpaceX; Molly McCormick, a former SpaceX human factors engineer; and Colin Smith, a former SpaceX propulsion engineer.
“Earth has finite resources, but out in the solar system, there is an enormous untapped wealth, both in terms of energy and matter, that could support many ‘Earths,’” McCaleb told SpaceNews in 2022.
“Likewise,” he added, “mankind needs a frontier. Every prosperous civilization has had one to push off into—we haven’t had one for some time. Without a frontier, the world becomes a zero-sum game, which is detrimental to the psyche of a civilization.”
Similar to a certain other space-obsessed billionaire, McCaleb has his eyes on the stars.
“In terms of the long-term future of humanity, we will need to live off of the Earth eventually,” he says.
Placed in low-Earth orbit by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, Haven-1 will be more of a high-class capsule hotel than an ISS-style space station but it’s nevertheless a serious research platform designed to offer long-term missions in comfort, not just a microgravity Hilton with free wifi and a stellar view.
“We think our private astronauts will want to contribute to scientific innovation,” offered Coe.
“They will want to sit in our Haven-1 lab and help find a cure for cancer; you can grow human skin cells exponentially faster in microgravity. And those are the kind of research innovations that we’re hoping that people are going to be having on the Haven-1, going up for an extended stay, not just going up to have a quick look at the Earth from space. This is not like a carnival ride.”
It certainly won’t be as cheap as a carnival ride, but Coe wouldn’t disclose the flight price. That’s on application via the organization’s website.
“We are talking to people who have the wherewithal, but no confirmed signatures as yet,” says Coe. “We’re confident we’ll have customer astronauts for our mission at the end of next year.”
Rich folks, then?
“Our long-term goal is for anybody to experience space,” Coe countered.
“Of course, in the beginning, you will need to pay to come up and have that experience and there will be a price tag that perhaps most of us won’t be able to afford on day one, but, over time, as it gets less expensive to put Haven-1’s up in low Earth orbit then access will get wider and wider.”
Room With a View
Those booking one of the four places on these space trips—expected to average 10 days—will receive safety training but won’t be tasked with flying or controlling the journey.
Instead, gawping has been prioritized. Haven-1 sports a large central window, allowing customers to view Earth.
“The interior design [of the Haven-1] is warm and inviting,” says a statement from Vast, adding that the aesthetics were guided by designer Peter Russell-Clarke, who has shaped some of Apple’s most iconic products.
“Haven-1’s human-centric industrial design introduces new dimensions of bold creativity and efficiency and creates a new standard for interior design in space,” continues Vast’s statement.
“In addition to having this [station] available immediately for private astronauts, we are also making it available to private astronaut commercial missions as well as government agencies,” says Coe.
The station, she says, is “where we get to put our stake in the ground as the next generation of living and thriving and not just surviving in space.”
Comfort is, therefore, key.
“You’ll be able to adjust things like temperature and lighting,” says Coe. “One of the really important pieces of feedback we’ve gotten from ISS astronauts is the proper regulation of circadian rhythms. We’ve taken painstaking care to fit the right kind of lighting so life on board feels as normal as possible.”
Will Vast employees get staff discounts?
“I hope so!” says Coe, a commercial pilot. “I’ve never worked at a place where you just walk the halls, and every single person you run into is so excited. I think it’s within our lifetime that we could see space travel become normal. It won’t necessarily be the same price as a United plane ticket, but certainly something that many of us could aspire to, whether funded by a sponsoring organization or privately funded.”
But, as environmentalists like to point out, there’s no Planet B, so shouldn’t we be more focused on problems closer to home rather than dallying with space travel?
“These two things are not mutually exclusive,” says Coe.
“Space research and observation are more important to our daily lives than many people imagine. Tracking weather patterns and measuring climate change doesn’t just happen; much of that information comes from space satellites; it comes from astronauts making observations and being able to do the research in space that benefits us back on Earth.”
Home From Home
And that vital work can be helped with creature comforts designed to keep passengers happy. Haven-1 was designed so “it can feel like you’re at home,” says Coe. But functional with it.
“I’ve flown three missions to space,” says Andrew Feustel, a NASA astronaut for 23 years, “and we are learning from those experiences and innovating to improve the way we can live and work on a space station.”
He and other astronauts have helped Vast with its design work.
“From communication and connectivity, to private space and interacting with others aboard, to advancing human progress on Earth and beyond, every detail [on the Haven-1] has been designed with the astronaut experience at the core of our work,” stressed Feustel.
Intimately acquainted with the needs of astronauts working in microgravity, Feustel has been an enthusiastic adjunct to Haven-1’s design team: “Intuitive design [for space] isn’t a luxury; it’s key to ensuring astronauts can work and live seamlessly. To see Haven-1’s design solve many of the challenges we faced aboard the ISS and to use the progress we made there to ensure we can do this long-term while caring for ourselves is just extraordinary.”
