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Cylindrical steel and glass towers protrude through solar panels on the vast circular roof of the futuristic, four-story Spaceport City.
The spaceport rises from a floating island, with the skyscrapers of an imagined Japanese metropolis in the background. It’s designed to launch tourists on day trips to space, where they will be able to see the building’s huge roof — as well as glimpse the curvature of the Earth and experience zero gravity.
The spaceport will do much more than offer adventurous tourists the trip of a lifetime. It’s a day trip destination in itself, with lifestyle and education facilities designed to help earthbound visitors become “more familiar with space” says Urszula Kuczma, project manager at Noiz Architects.
The mixed-use space includes research and business facilities, an education academy, shops, a hotel, an astronaut-food restaurant, a 4D IMAX movie theatre, an art museum, a gym, an aquarium and a disco — all space-themed, of course.
To make the spaceport accessible, Noiz Architects’ design incorporates public transport with a network of bridges that carry electric cars and autonomous trains, seamlessly integrating the floating island with the city, says Kuczma. The idea, she says, is to stimulate economic opportunities, while inspiring people to explore the possibilities of technology and the wonders of space.
Day trips to space
Unlike the conventional vertical rocket launchers most of us associate with space travel, Spaceport City is designed for suborbital spaceships that look more like planes and take off horizontally.
Noiz Architects’ plans for Spaceport City include facilities to help space tourists get prepared, says Kuczma. Space travel can be physically and mentally challenging, she says, so health check-ups in the medical clinic and training at the gym or space academy may be part of pre-flight preparations.
Location, location, location
These spaceports have been located near cities to attract space-related businesses and space travelers — once commercial flights are available.
Spaceport City is designed to showcase the benefits of urban spaceports, to get city dwellers on board with having a spaceport on their doorstep, says Hidetaka Aoki, director of Spaceport Japan.
This kind of spaceflight is still decades off, but Spaceport Japan wants conceptual projects like Spaceport City to lay the groundwork in changing perceptions and “educating” the public about “potential business,” says Aoki.
Whether elements of Noiz Architects’ design will make it into spaceports of the future remains to be seen — but the project starts a conversation about what space travel could be like.
Kuczma hopes it will give “people a peek and get them primed for the concept of space as part of the contemporary landscape.”
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