{"id":17053,"date":"2026-02-09T18:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-to-design-a-space-station-meet-the-seattle-company-thats-helping-define-the-look-of-the-final-frontier\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T18:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:01:12","slug":"how-to-design-a-space-station-meet-the-seattle-company-thats-helping-define-the-look-of-the-final-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-to-design-a-space-station-meet-the-seattle-company-thats-helping-define-the-look-of-the-final-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"How to design a space station: Meet the Seattle company that\u2019s helping define the look of the final frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Illustration:
This cutaway view shows the interior of the Starlab space station\u2019s laboratory. (Starlab Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How do you design a living space where there\u2019s no up or down? That\u2019s one of the challenges facing Teague, a Seattle-based design and innovation firm that advises space companies such as Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Voyager Technologies on how to lay out their orbital outposts.<\/p>\n

Mike Mahoney, Teague\u2019s senior director of space and defense programs, says the zero-gravity environment is the most interesting element to consider in space station design.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t put things on surfaces, right? You\u2019re not going to have tables, necessarily, unless you can attach things to them, and they could be on any surface,\u201d he told GeekWire. \u201cSo, directionality is a big factor. And knowing that opens up new opportunities. \u2026 You could have, let\u2019s say, two scientists working in different orientations in the same area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Mike Mahoney is senior director of space and defense programs at Teague. (Photo via LinkedIn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the next few years, NASA and its partners are expected to make the transition from the aging International Space Station to an array of commercial space stations \u2014 and Teague is helping space station builders get ready for the shift.<\/p>\n

Space is one of the newer frontiers for a company that\u2019s celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding this year. Teague is best-known for helping to design the interiors of Boeing airplanes as well as the first Polaroid camera and Microsoft\u2019s first Xbox gaming console.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, Teague helped Boeing and NASA with their plans for Space Station Freedom, an orbital project that never got off the ground but eventually evolved into the International Space Station. Teague also partnered with NASA on a 3D-printed mockup for a Mars habitat, known as the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, Teague is focusing on interior designs for commercial spacecraft, a business opportunity that capitalizes on the company\u2019s traditional expertise in airplane design.<\/p>\n

Mahoney said Teague has been working with Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture on a variety of projects for more than a decade. The first project was the New Shepard suborbital rocket ship, which made its debut in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe partnered with their engineering team to design for the astronaut experience within the New Shepard space capsule,\u201d Mahoney said. \u201cIt\u2019s all the interior components that you see that come together, from the linings to the lighting. We created a user experience vision for the displays as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alan
GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle sits in one of the padded seats inside a mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital spaceship, on display at a space conference in 2017. The door of the capsule\u2019s hatch is just to the right of Boyle\u2019s head. (GeekWire File Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teague also worked with Blue Origin on design elements for the Orbital Reef space station and the Blue Moon lunar lander. \u201cWe were involved in initial concepting for the look and feel of the vehicles,\u201d Mahoney said. \u201cIn other cases, we designed and built mockups that were used for astronaut operations and testing. How do we navigate around the lunar lander legs? How do we optimize toolboxes on the surface of the moon?\u201d<\/p>\n

Other space station ventures that have benefited from Teague\u2019s input include Axiom Space (which also brought in Philippe Starck as a big-name designer) and Starlab Space, a joint venture founded by Voyager Technologies and Airbus. <\/p>\n

Starlab recently unveiled a three-story mockup of its space station at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Texas. The mockup is built so that it can be reconfigured to reflect tweaks that designers want to make in the space station\u2019s layout, before launch or even years after launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that\u2019s been very helpful along this development path has been working with Teague, because you have to have a really good idea on how you lay out this very large volume so that you can optimize the efficiency of the crew,\u201d said Tim Kopra, a former NASA astronaut who now serves as chief human exploration officer at Voyager Technologies.<\/p>\n

Kopra compared the Starlab station to a three-story condo. \u201cThe first floor is essentially like the basement of a large building that has the infrastructure,\u201d he said, \u201cIt has our life support systems, avionics and software, the toilets, the hygiene station \u2014 which encompasses both the toilet and a cleaning station \u2014 and the workout equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second floor serves as a laboratory and workspace, with a glovebox, freezer, centrifuge, microscope and plenty of racks and lockers for storage. \u201cWe are very focused on four different industries: semiconductors, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and materials science,\u201d Kopra said.<\/p>\n

He said the third floor will be a \u201cplace that people will enjoy \u2026 because Deck 3 has our crew quarters, our galley table, our windows and a little bit more experiment capacity.\u201d <\/p>\n

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