Review: The Space Architect

Adams designed living spaces for astronauts

After watching the documentary Changing Lanes, I had a quick break eating a Japanese sausage roll (a sausage wrapped in a croissant-like fluffy, flaky pastry), I returned to VIFF to watch The Space Architect, directed by Rebecca Carpenter.

Who's the space architect? It's Constance Adams, a woman who took her skills as an architect and applied them to space, imagining how astronauts live outside of the Earth, what their lives will be like, what they would need, and how they would survive.

She got to experience zero gravity

But she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and contacted Carpenter, her college classmate who is a filmmaker, asking her to come film her last words.

Carpenter rushed over to Houston and filmed Adams, who by this point was quite ill, needing oxygen to help her breathe. Dressed in a green shirt and black vest, Adams looked very animated, and her nails were painted bright red.

She got a bachelors degree in social studies at Harvard, then a masters in architecture at Yale. She interned with Cesar Pelli, then went to Tokyo to work for the architectural firm Kenzo Tange, then Berlin to work for Josef Paul Kleihues.

However, the economy in Germany wasn't doing well following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Adams returned to the US to interview for a firm in Houston. While she was there she toured NASA and thought it was so interesting she left them her resume.

Her inflatable TransHub project

They later contacted her and asked if she was still interested. She was. Lockheed Martin hired her as a consultant and she worked on various projects, though she was best known for TransHab, or Transit Habitat, an inflatable module where astronauts could live and work.

Her way of solving problems was to gather all different kinds of experts together, from engineers to psychologists to talk about various scenarios and imagine what it would be like to live in space and how that would affect design and architecture in space.

Adams says all her work with NASA isn't really about humans going into space and finding the final frontier, it's about finding ways for humans to survive on Earth with climate change happening. To find solutions, she created the Mothership project.

Towards the end of the film, it says that four days after Carpenter finished filming, Adams died at the age of 53.

We were lucky that Carpenter came to Vancouver to talk to audiences after the screening. She started by saying Adams wanted her to tell everyone to get a colonoscopy after the age of 50... if she had done so she would have detected the cancer earlier.

Then she talked about filming Adams, that she was sicker than she thought she was, and they did the best they could.

Adams when she was filmed in 2018

After filming wrapped, Carpenter didn't know what she had and let her daughter watch some raw footage; she said this woman is iconic, and that her story had to be told. Her daughter's friend said the same, and so did a film editor friend.

Then the pandemic hit and Carpenter couldn't deal with this project while isolating, finding it a depressing subject. But it seems like it was a group of women in the film industry who encouraged Carpenter to keep going, and they helped her out to eventually finish the film this year.

Adams' daughters have seen the film and say it captures their mother well, and Carpenter confirms they are doing well under the guardianship of Adams' friend.

One audience member asked Carpenter what she learned from making this film and she replied that she is so grateful for every moment, sharing the moment of being with us, being thankful for everything... it seemed like she basically meant that she was grateful to be alive.

Adams accomplished so much in her short time on Earth, and we need to remember trailblazers like her, and be inspired by her great ambitions for all of us.

The Space Architect

Directed by Rebecca Carpenter

40 minutes

Seattle Sights

An iconic element of Seattle's skyline

During my one-day trip to Seattle I didn't really see the sights, but a good place to start is the Space Needle. In that vicinity are various places to check out that are all walking distance from each other.

There's the Space Needle itself where visitors can go up the 605 ft (184.4m) tall tower and have a 360-degree view of the city below. It was built for the 1962 World's Fair, where the theme was "The Age of Space".

International Fountain with its space theme

And the Chihuly Garden and Glass, where people can get a taste of glass artist Dale Chihuly's work rain or shine. His creations are fantastical, colourful and awe-inspiring, such large pieces that are suspended from the ceiling or placed in unconventional places. 

The International Fountain is also a remnant from the 1962 World's Fair. The metal dome is meant to convey the feeling of a lunar landscape. The fountain has 274 water jets and the water it spouts out has been treated and recycled. While we visited on an overcast day, one can only imagine it's the perfect place for kids to beat the heat.

Next to the fountain is a work called Neototems by Seattle artist Gloria Bornstein. It features two whales showing off their dorsal fins in bronze. 

Neototems by Glora Bornstein

We were mesmerised by the Frank Gehry-designed Museum of Pop Culture with its wavy walls and various colours. The museum captures the essence of pop culture, from music like grunge and hip hop, to science fiction and fantasy. 

Patriotic Astronauts Need Only Apply

People from Hong Kong and Macau can apply for a space job

It's very intriguing that only now is the Chinese government inviting people from Hong Kong and Macau to apply for a position in the national space program -- and yes being a patriot is a requirement.

The job is for a payload expert, a scientist or engineer who manages highly complex or classified onboard equipment and carries out scientific activities, such as astronautical measurements.

A key requirement is to be a "patriot"

Male or female candidates must be between the ages of 30 and 45, be 1.62-1.75 metres tall for men, and 1.6-1.75 metres tall for women. The Hospital Authority will also confirm their physical fitness.

Applicants must have a doctoral degree and at least three years of relevant work experience, such as life sciences, material sciences, physics, chemistry, psychology, biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering or astronomy.

But perhaps more importantly, the candidates must be Chinese nationals who are permanent residents, and are patriots -- along with their family members who adhere to the "one country, two systems" policy, as well as uphold state and local constitutions.

When asked what would happen if someone was a British National (Overseas) visa holder would be eligible, Hong Kong's technology minister Sun Dong replied screening would be done according to established procedures, without defining the patriot requirement.

"For applicants who want to give up their foreign identities and participate in the program, I think I will leave it to the vetting committee to handle," Sun said.

Sun isn't sure if BNO holders qualify for the job

Perhaps it was not a question they had anticipated...

Does anyone in Hong Kong and Macau fulfil all those requirements? It's possible but probably very slim pickings. The height requirement alone will eliminate a number of people! 

It's interesting China picked this time to recruit people from Hong Kong and Macau -- why not earlier? This would have been an excellent opportunity to not only discover new talent, but also bring them into the fold and give the next generation a possible path into the space industry.

But maybe better now than never?