Out of this world — how space shuttle cockpit design changed over time
When Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off Earth in a SpaceX rocket in May 2020, there were a lot of firsts: it was the first manned rocket launch on American soil since the shuttle program ended in 2011, the first NASA flight with a private company, and the space shuttle cockpit looked completely different to anything we’ve ever seen before.
Robert L. Behnken, better known as Bob Behnken, was born in 1970 and has spent over 708 hours in space. The astronaut first flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2008 with the space shuttle Endeavour and took a second trip in 2012. Then the space shuttle program ended and Behnken had to wait eight years before he could return to the ISS. When he launched back into space in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on May 30, 2020, everything around him had changed.
While spaceship cockpits in science fiction movies already looked like the future in the 1970s, the cockpits of space shuttles that flew up to the end of the US space program were more reminiscent of ordinary jumbo jets — just crammed with more buttons, switches, knobs and flashing lights that shone as bright as the advertising signs in Times Square.
Three touchscreens instead of 1000 buttons
SpaceX has radically changed the cockpit design with the Crew Dragon. Of the more than 1000 buttons and switches in the old space shuttles, now only around ten remain, all for potential emergencies only. The design is ultra-simple: black seats, white cabin trim, no frills. In the center of the cockpit are three touchscreens, which — much to their delight — the astronauts use to read all the flight information and control the capsule. “It’s exciting to see modern components in a spacecraft. For those of us who have been living with switches from the 1960s for all these years to see a modern interface is something that’s been pretty exciting”, said Behnken during this look at the inside of the Crew Dragon.
Space travel has always been a symbol of technological progress. The change in spaceship cockpits anticipates what will be seen in our everyday lives over the coming years and decades, such as in the interiors of the cars we drive. Software and automation have enabled a step forward in cockpit design, one that is stripped down to the essentials without sacrificing functionality. The SpaceX rocket can dock autonomously with the ISS, which raises the question: if a spacecraft no longer needs a control stick, will the fully autonomous cars of the future even need a steering wheel?
When will touchpads replace plastic buttons in our work?
SpaceX’s design of the Crew Dragon proves the technical capabilities exist to turn radical new ideas into reality. What is ground-breaking about this is the trust in the machine itself. Not every button has to be physically installed in duplicate, because the software running in the background can be relied on to take their place. Technology should be oriented to people’s individual needs and their natural behavior. Yet the interaction between man and machine has only gradually changed in the last couple of decades. Keyboards, mice and plastic knobs still dominate our workplaces and homes, perhaps because we still don’t have enough trust in the new technologies that will replace them.
However, something is changing. Will the confidence in new forms of human-machine interaction soon be as great in our everyday lives as it now is in space travel? If so, maybe the car that Bob Behnken uses to drive to Cape Canaveral for his next trip to the ISS will be as autonomous as the spacecraft he flies in.
Good design should make people’s lives easier — at Incari we are convinced of this. We are a Berlin-based software provider that creates the HMI development platform Incari Studio. We create the required tools and technologies necessary for developing future-based HMI systems in various industries. InterFaces is a platform to explore what such systems can or will look like at some point in the future. Follow us on Twitter: Incari_HMI, Follow us on Instagram: Incari_HMI, Follow us on LinkedIn: Incari HMI Development.
