Working on crew health since 2019
Stellar Amenities was founded in San Francisco in 2019 as a space architecture practice, designing interiors, sleep and habitation systems for crewed missions. Our deep pressure work, Space Hug, was tested on a parabolic flight and drew comment from NASA astronauts and flight surgeons. On October 17, 2021, we flew on AstroAccess Flight 1 with ZERO-G, testing tactile navigation for a more accessible cabin.
That work became the Lab. Stellar Amenities Lab is a commercial lab focused on keeping people healthy in space. We mature crew health and habitation technology across the gap between the lab and flight, and build companies around what we mature. From time to time we also invest in outside teams working on the same problems. Based in San Francisco, the Lab works with agencies, station operators and universities to make it easier for people to live and work beyond Earth. You can read more about our mission in our founding note.
National interestAs crewed missions extend farther from Earth, crew health has become a matter of national security.
Designated a critical and emerging technology
The White House National Security Science and Technology Strategy names crewed spaceflight enablers among the critical and emerging technologies that underpin U.S. national security.
Read the brief →The case for a California space strategy
California leads the nation in aerospace talent and capital, yet has no seat on the Commercial Space Federation’s State and Local Council. A state strategy could fund the workforce and test infrastructure that crew health technology requires.
From human-computer to human-spacecraft interaction
Human-computer interaction was pioneered at SRI and Xerox PARC. The next interface is between crews and the spacecraft they live in. NASA Ames, Stanford and the region’s hardware and capital base are all within an hour of our San Francisco Lab.
The region that built human-computer interaction is where human-spacecraft interaction will be built.
Strategic location
Our San Francisco Lab is within an hour of NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Research Park and the planned Berkeley Air & Space Center, and of prime contractors such as Lockheed Martin Space in Sunnyvale.
Human-computer interaction and medical devices
SRI and Xerox PARC pioneered the mouse and the graphical user interface, and Stanford Biodesign helped make the region a center for medical devices. Crew health technology draws on both.
A talent pipeline
Stanford, UC Berkeley and the region’s technology companies train the engineers, designers and clinicians that crew health technology needs. Keeping that talent in California keeps the jobs and the know-how here.
Prime and agency relationships
Working next to NASA Ames and the region’s prime contractors shortens the path from a prototype to a contract, and from a contract to flight.
A constellation of research, all within an hour of our Lab
Our San Francisco Lab sits at the center of the Bay Area's space and health research community, from NASA Research Park in Mountain View to the universities of the East Bay.
- NASA Ames Research CenterMountain View · agency research, test facilities
- Berkeley Air & Space CenterNASA Research Park · planned UC Berkeley research campus
- Stanford UniversityPalo Alto · medicine, engineering, aeronautics
- SRI International and Xerox PARCMenlo Park and Palo Alto · birthplaces of human-computer interaction
- UC BerkeleyBerkeley · space sciences and engineering
- Chabot Space & Science CenterOakland · public science and workforce programs