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P. Wikus:
"Konstruieren für die bemannte Raumfahrt am Beispiel des RFR";
Supervisor: H.-P. Lenz, F. Laußermair; E 315 Institut für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen und Kraftfahrzeugbau, 2002.

Since the early 1960ies, when the first human being to orbit earth, Yuri Gagarin, flew to space, a lot has changed in manned spaceflight. Cold War used to be the most important incentive to fund expensive space programs; both astronauts and cosmonauts were personnel of the armed forces. Not science, but military interest as weil as a nation's prestige were of uppermost importance. In the Soviet space programme, safety was hardly an issue. Nowadays, in the age of international cooperation and long term space flight, focuses have shifted: Caused by findings in many scientific fields -such as ergonomics and behavioural science, for example -and due to the increased experience, more emphasis is put on the human factor. Today, designing for manned spaceflight means taking strict safety and Human Factors Requirements into account. Before a payload is approved to fly aboard the Space Shuttle or the ISS, for instance, it has to pass various reviews, among others the so-calied crew review. During this examination, astronauts and cosmonauts respectively evaluate the hardware with regard to its suitability for usage in space. It's often this review that makes costly design-changes inevitable.
The variety of requirements that was published by NASA regulating Human Factors as weil as safety issues will be described in this diploma thesis. It's crucial for every designer in the space industry to assure that his design meets these requirements. Only orbital systems will be covered; including launchers would go too far. Between March 18th and August 31st 2002 I had the honour to participate in the ISS Crew Refrigerator and Freezer Rack (RFR) project at Astrium GmbH (10701) in Friedrichshafen, Germany, being engaged in both Rack Integration and Safety/Human Factors Implementation. The results of this most interesting work, i.e. an analysis of the RFR's compliance in regards to safety and Human Factors, will be presented as weil as a thorough description of the RFR system architecture.
As a conclusion, an outlook on the future and how designing for manned spaceflight might develop will be given, especially with a view to a manned mission to Mars. In 2001, the museum of design in Zurich, Switzerland, promoted the exhibition "Space Design -Living in a Microgravity Environment"; some promising and interesting ideas were presented, which will be dealt with, too.