Below is the original project proposal I submitted while working on this project in USC's LA: A Polymathic Inquiry Class. Feel free to skip to the next section to read further, this is just some context on my original vision for the project. I started this project before the class as well, developing it as part of Zed Factor Fellowship's Community Service project. 

Space is lifeless, cold, unfriendly. Yet, it is also the future home of humanity. I believe that to make it a future home will require the applications of all Earthly disciplines to space, however the first most important relationship is the one between artist & designers and engineers. This is a relationship that has existed since the beginning of flight and aerospace, and now the space industry. My research will spend a little bit tracing this relationship from the beginnings of the Wright Brothers, to the explosion of aerospace in Southern California due to WW2, and a lot more time on the near history of NASA, the JSC Habitability Design Center, architectural influence on space prototyping and visualization, and the embrace or lack thereof of humanism in engineering. I will claim that a failure of including art & design in the systems engineering view is what causes a rift between art and engineering, where a union is more productive. Additionally, how siloes in academia further brought the two fields apart. Recently, there has been a resurgence of unifying the two fields and dozens more applications popping up as humanity gets more and more people into space. To enable humanity living and working in space in the future I will point to the microgravity environment as an opportunity for complete redesign of everyday systems and argue that just like on Earth, designers are the people dedicated to creating the world we live according to both emotional and logical aspects like aesthetics and usability.

My current working title for the paper is: Art & Technology: How Systems Thinkers are the Modern Polymaths of Outer Space Design. The title comes from my analysis that engineers created the term “systems engineering” as a way to formalize a still very technical field that focuses on holistic thinking and includes concepts generally omitted from engineering such as the social, aesthetic, and cultural implications of space missions. On the other hand, the social sciences seem to prefer the concept of “polymath” and most polymathic people have a strong background in the arts that simultaneously evolves with their engineering knowledge. I will ask: What is the relationship between art & design and engineering? How can artists & designers leverage their humanistic perspective to benefit space projects? What are the opportunities for design in outer space? What are examples past, present and future of artists influencing engineering decisions? This research is important as a guide to maximise innovation and prioritize the human element during a transitory time in our history grappling with our purpose in space and developing the real projects that catch up to science fiction imagination. 

To be clear, this is not a paper about fine art in space, about space, or for space. Nor will this piece work to make any arguments for the importance of spaceflight in general. It’s about the artistic perspective that’s used to inform human-centered design in space engineering projects. It’s about how we can best leverage the art and engineering relationship to architect a new era of humanity as a space-faring civilization. This relationship may be within oneself or as expert representatives working together. At the conclusion of my paper, I am interested in offering some actionable advice on how to best leverage this relationship, drawing on my researched examples. All in all, my research implicates the necessary redesigning of all systems known on Earth to operate in space and highlighting why artists and designers are important in this process. This is part of the emerging field known as astrosociology, and defines astrosocial phenomena as

“relating to all types of associations, either direct or indirect, between social or cultural patterns and space” (Pass). In my case the “association” is to a designer's artistic perspective. My most important source so far is Into the Extreme: U.S. Environmental Systems and Politics beyond Earth by sociologist and ethnographer Valerie Olson. Her field work in Chapter 7: Trans Habitation looks at NASA missions and how designers and engineers collaborated on them. People she spoke to at NASA share my interest in the concept of “systems engineering” as exemplified by design thinking, saying that: 

“For the folks that go through engineering school, the mentality is all about optimizing the design. . . . And that’s not always the right  solution, because it needs to be an integrated solution that balances both psychological and physical environments so that you give them the best environment in which they have to live and work. . . . We [architects and designers] make pretty good systems engineers because we’re not trained as a systems engineer.” 

Olson references entrepreneur Rick Tumlinson spaceflight “disciplines” as belonging to visionary allegiance groups: “von Braunians” (interested in developing a centralized technocratic and militarized infrastructure), “Saganites” (environmentally concerned scientists who want to explore with robots), and “O’Neillians” (people aspiring toward decentralized space colonization and resource development projects for large populations)” These are camps of thought around design for space that I will be able to reference when comparing examples. From the examples mentioned in this source stem other sources and people I researched such as Archigram, Joe Davis, Garret Finley, Le Corbu, Guy Troti, Malcolm Gladwell, and Andreas Vogler. Separately, I was interested in learning more about the design of products for microgravity. The book Space

Wear specifically focused on fashion design for space but also references the, so far, short history of product innovation in space, starting with NASA’s Capillary cup, born out of the desire to drink from an open container like one would on earth (Brownie, RIT). The emerging field of designing for microgravity is exciting and, while it seems like the field of engineering to figure out the technical ways to control it, I claim that it’s actually the opposite. Artistic experimentation has often been the most creative and pushes the boundaries of engineering and materials before engineering itself does.
“Technological innovation by artists is nothing new .... Artists like Antonio Pollaiuolo,
Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo performed rigorous analytical study, working with 

physicians and even dissecting corpses themselves. Their investigations surpassed much of the knowledge of anatomy taught in universities at the time, and merged anatomical with architectural concepts — such as plan, section, elevation, and perspective — producing a new vocabulary for scientific illustration” (McWilliams).

Artists will be essential to discovering new ways to use the affordances provided by microgravity. 

Another section of research as to how art impacts engineering decisions is visualization and prototyping. Designers, architects, and engineers are all really good at prototyping to flush out concepts. People trained in hands-on-making and the arts happen to be the most adept at creating physical models as well as 3D visualizations of the proposed final product. von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design states that "If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept." This is echoed by a story from my oral interview with Adam Burch. He worked on 3D visualization for a Lockheed Martin project, where his initial drawing assumptions were actually included in the final design of the system! He mentioned he felt very satisfied by contributing to the final design with his artwork and his art was used as a tool for the engineers to visualize and discuss what they are working on. The documentary Blue Sky Metropolis echoes this, showing countless people at the drafting table, and working on giant wood scale models for Apollo.

All in all, I am excited to contribute this research to the emerging body of astrosociology work and to deepen the understanding of the relationship between artists & designers and engineers, both within each person and as a team, in the space industry. An expansion of the essay part of the project for next year would be my original idea to create a website resource dedicated to showcasing creative professions within the space industry and would be a repository of all my edited oral interviews, this essay, and inspired art project and prompts for students.