NASA's New Base Uses Smart Spaceship Tech on the Ground

NASA's new building will use smart systems that adjust to climate conditions to reach zero net energy consumption

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 08.05.2009 at 4:30 pm 6 Comments

NASA Gets Green: Smart systems and a central computer will keep track of even individual energy efficiency in NASA's Sustainability Base. Don't anger the computer. NASA

Get ready for the greenest federal building ever built, and maybe also the smartest. NASA plans to channel decades of space exploration technology into its upcoming Sustainability Base in California.

The U.S. space agency will draw on sensor technologies developed for space exploration to build its eco-friendly smart building. Groundbreaking is scheduled for August 25, 2009 at the NASA Ames Research Center in California.

A central computer will draw on weather forecasts and a dynamic web of sensors to figure out the right settings for the building's automated environmental controls, and even adjust to changing sunlight, wind, and temperature conditions. SPACE.com reports that the computer will also plan heating and cooling around how many people are in various rooms or meetings, based on each worker's electronic calendar.

The ever-watchful computer would even encourage the human occupants to boost their energy efficiency, by constantly providing reminders on building inhabitants' individual laptops.

That would likely go a long way toward NASA's goal of having a zero net energy consumption building, with less than 10 percent of the water consumption of comparably sized buildings. The building design aims for a platinum rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building standards.

Cooling panels and 72 geothermal wells to route naturally cooled water will substitute for air conditioning in the California heat. The central computer might also opt to crack open the windows if it detects a nighttime breeze.

If NASA can manage this type of smart environmental control on Earth, it's easy to imagine a similar setup for the inner environmental systems of future manned spacecraft, not to mention bases on the moon, Mars, and beyond. Just don't name the central computer HAL.

[via SPACE.com]

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6 Comments

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avance

08/05/09 at 4:56 pm

this is a good article

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extremechiton

08/06/09 at 2:13 pm

now why dont houses have this tech?

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pheonix1012

08/07/09 at 8:28 am

@extremechiton

Houses do have this tech to a somewhat lesser extent. You can have your home converted into an eco-friendly dwelling for a considerable sum of money and your house will be heated by the sun via solar panels in the winter, and cooled by geothermal wells via pipes in the summer.

As far as houses and buildings with brains, that just seems like something that only a super rich engineer might have controlling his house while he's busy building weapons systems for his defense contracting enterprise.

Overall good article. Yet another reason why people should not count out the agency responsible for moving human life on the planet earth forward.

"Welcome! to the Federation Starship SS Buttcrack!!!"

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ljscreenwriter

08/14/09 at 5:39 am

How much of our tax dollars is this thing going to cost?

72 wells and a house full of sensors sounds expensive.

All the energy savings will be lost with the extra expense of construction.

NASA is so good at spending our money. Still flying 30 year old shuttles but we got money for this?

How much electricity will all those sensors and the computer system use?

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PeteDSL

08/21/09 at 1:08 am

PeteDSL Chula Vista
In response to ljscreenwriter.
Who cares how much electricity the building or any other project uses. What is important is how much energy the building takes from the Grid. As long as all the energy is generated on the property without taking energy from the Grid or the chemical power industry or from petroleum, then the power is either socially neutral or can be set up to be socially positive by adding power to the Grid or chemical power networks.

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waycooljr

09/25/09 at 3:05 am

Any chance the code running on this the computer control system could be made public? Tax payers did pay for it after all.