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This summary paper addresses each of the key words in its title; Designing, Space Habitats and Productivity; from the perspective of a research architect. This approach looks at definitions of productivity in their specific economic, industrial, social and technical context. The discussion covers crew autonomy, democracy and teamwork as productivity values for space habitats.

The ultimate goal of human space exploration is to discover if life exists on other worlds, to understand the genesis and evolution of the universe and to learn to live on other planets. Mars offers the closest opportunity to pursue these goals realistically. The capabilities to define, design, develop, build, test, contract out, manufacture and operate new technologies are the means to achieve this set of goals. The purpose of this set of criteria is to evaluate mission design and exploration technology proposals to ensure that the means support the goals and do no obstruct them. This paper presents a comprehensive approach to evaluating complete Mars mission designs and partial designs. It begins from current theory and methodology of design problem definition. It proposes a method of evaluating if the mission design solution answers the problem definition.

This paper questions the widely held assumption that a single crew habitat can serve equally well as both an interplanetary vehicle and as a Mars surface habitat. This paper argues that these two uses and the designs to support them are so fundamentally different that it is not possible to serve both optimally with the same habitat element. This distinction leads to a reassessment of the Mars Direct approach and similar mission architectures. As an alternative, this paper presents the Being There versus Getting There (BTvGT) approach, so-named because it comprehends the distinction between the two habitats and the mission scenarios that they support. The first distinction is the emphasis upon placing optimal facilities upon the Mars surface and in the interplanetary vehicle, even at the cost of greater total mission launch mass. This shift signifies a focus upon the quality and content of the masses involved, rather than just total undifferentiated tonnage delivered to the surface.