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This paper explores the issues of integrating all the elements necessary to support a healthy and productive crew in a space habitat. The problem of this system integration hinges largely upon the nature of the structural system, both of the primary pressure envelope and the internal secondary structure of floors, partitions, hard points and stand-offs. This habitat integration must accommodate the life support system, stowage, private quarters, group activity areas, and working areas. The working areas may include laboratories, control centers, maintenance and repair facilities. Human factors engineering design stands as a challenge throughout the habitat. The distinction between an interplanetary habitat for zero gravity and a planetary surface habitat for a gravity field serves as an important design driver and discriminator. Environmental effects such as ionizing radiation, ultraviolet radiation, meteoroids, extremes of hot and cold act as determining factors as well.

Radiation is the leading showstopper for long duration human exploration of the lunar surface. The need for an effective and safe radiation shielding material has become the “Holy Grail” of radiation protection research. This paper reports the results for one material in particular – carbon – in the “Bioshield” particle accelerator test of candidate radiation shielding at Brookhaven National Laboratory, sponsored jointly by NASA and the Italian Space Agency. Shielding samples were bombarded by both Iron and Titanium nuclei beams at1 GeV/n relativistic energy. This paper reports the results for Fe. The target behind the shielding was a lymphocyte culture; created using advanced cytogenetic techniques (premature chromosome condensation and fluorescence in situ hybridization). The shielding samples included aluminum, PMMA acrylic/Lucite, polyethylene, and lead.