In a recent post on our blog for National Space Day, Digital Access & Preservation Archivist Brian Wilson highlighted a few concept drawings created by the Sundberg-Ferar industrial design firm, in conjunction with Lockheed and NASA, in the early 1980s. As Brian notes, these drawings of a manned space station “considered how the astronauts would perform normal earthbound tasks in the tight quarters of the space station, including the need to exercise, bathe and sleep, and how a near-zero gravity environment would affect those tasks.” The drawings shown here, for example, demonstrate how dining might work in space. If your interest is piqued, you can now browse a couple dozen more of these newly-digitized drawings on our collections website.

Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.