Starfuel
"The official pitstop before Mars"
About Starfuel
Starfuel is a design fiction which investigates consumerist aspect of space exploration through a mixed reality experience of fueling a spaceship on Mar's smallest moon, Deimos. Rather than being entirely imaginary, design fictions simultaneously entail conceiving a potential and plausible near future technology based on current trends and encourages the audience to critically explore the possible uses and consequences.[1] A design fiction is defined by "(1) something that creates a story world, (2) has something prototyped within that story world, (3) does so in order to create a discursive space."[2]
Motivation
(1) augment virtual reality controllers into a common recognizable object
(2) construct a sizable physical portion of a mixed reality experience
(3) develop a message for social impact
Creating a Story World
The story world developed through Starfuel is based on our current trends toward outer space migration. It develops a world where outer space travel is publicly accessible by using the smallest of Mars’ moons, Deimos, as a pitstop between Mars and other planets The specific story setting as a fuel station investigates a future where our current trends of consumerism expand inter-planetarily.
Spaceport Prototyping
Starfuel considers the arrival of capitalism in outer space deemed as ‘NewSpace’, marked by the pursuits of private corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Brandson's Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origins,[4] by prototyping a space that mirrors gas stations on Earth.
Specifically, Starfuel points towards:
(1) Camouflaging profit maximization and exploitation of celestial bodies with the dream of humanity boldly venturing forth into the unknown [4]
(2) The search for life on Mars occurs in tandem with the search for fossilized organisms in the form of natural gas [3]
(3) Inter-planetary consumerism through common gas station consumables (Energy drinks, vaporizers, fast-food, etc.)
(4) The adoption of an interplanetary currency
Creating a Discursive Space
While outer space migration is not inherently undesirable, Starfuel seeks to simultaneously identify and problematize traditional notions of outer space exploration as well as offer its audience space to critically examine alternatives. The discursive space formed by Starfuel explores potential aspects of outer space migration if current trending actions in capitalism are continued.
Design Methodology
Starfuel was designed in Unity and a Windows Mixed Reality headset. Fusion 360 was used in order to design an accurate size of objects that would be both imported into Unity as well as physically constructed.
Future Work and References
Starfuel in only the foundation for a greater design fiction storyworld. Future work is being conducted to create a larger outer space infrastructure and explore ethical constraints.
[1] Adam, David. “Science and Culture: ‘Design Fiction’ Skirts Reality to Provoke Discussion and Debate | PNAS.” Accessed January 26, 2021. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13179.
[2] Lindley, Joseph, and Paul Coulton. “Back to the Future: 10 Years of Design Fiction.” In Proceedings of the 2015 British HCI Conference, 210–11. Lincoln Lincolnshire United Kingdom: ACM, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1145/2783446.2783592.
[3] McGowan III, John F. “Oil and Natural Gas on Mars.” edited by Richard B. Hoover, 63–74. San Diego, CA, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.411610. [4] Shammas, Victor L., and Tomas B. Holen. “One Giant Leap for Capitalistkind: Private Enterprise in Outer Space.” Palgrave Communications 5, no. 1 (December 2019): 10. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0218-9.
