TASSO & NASA
a german "Sleep well!" from outer space
The New Sleeping System for Space designed in Munich and Oer-Erkenschwick
The first experiments in simulated weightlessness carried out by scientists and the manufacturer at the NASA Center in Houston, Texas, at the end of October 1999 were awarded the grade 6.5 out of 7 as the best in class.
Prof. Dr. Eduard Igenbergs, who holds the Chair of Space Technology, and Prof Richard Horden, who holds the Chair of Architecture at the Munich Technical University, made quite an impression at NASA in the spring with their developmental work on space habitation units. They consolidated their work by founding the "MUNICH Space Design Group". Thomas Dirlich led the successful efforts to transform the TASSO SpaceBed concept into reality. Thanks to their position as the worldwide leading manufacturer of waterbed and regeneration systems, the Vontana Corporation was able to harness their comprehensive in-house production expertise along with their substantial stock of scientific knowledge which is based on their ground-breaking research into aspects of sleep and regeneration in order to produce the SpaceBed. The first test of this innovative design under weightless conditions was seen as a great success - even from the critical perspective of the astronauts.
The physiological success of TASSO beds - a new generation of waterbeds on Earth - can be traced back to the key characteristic of attempting to create the most weightless sensation possible when lying on a bed; the concept of providing perfectly even support to the body and achieving hitherto unattainable results in the fields of regeneration, sleep medicine and the orthopedic aspects of sleep. Attempts to achieve weightlessness in situations involving lying down on earth (based on the concept of the unborn child in the mother's womb) resulted naturally in an examination of the inverse side of this topic, i.e. looking at solutions for the problems inherent in sleeping under weightless conditions in space. This brought the Munich scientists into contact with the TASSO Sleep Group and the associated Institute for Sleep Medicine and Interdisciplinary Sleep Research (ISIS, Munster).
An analysis of the current technology regarding sleeping in space and the particular problems which it poses confirmed how these are generically related to the objectives of the German manufacturers, who were quickly able to offer a range of practical solutions. As reported by Dr Rosenberg from the ISIS, NASA had up till that point carried out virtually no research into regenerative sleep in space. The objectives were, firstly, to continue ensuring that astronauts were protected and secured against the dangers of floating around during their vital rest phases and, secondly, to achieve the generally acknowledged elements of sleep such as feeling, pressure, comfort, positioning of the spine etc.. Seen from the perspectives of sleep medicine and physiology, the aim was to create a sensation of corporeality (with gentle pressure), well-being and relaxation and achieve correct orthopedic support of the individual body shapes. The purpose of all this was to make the eight hours prescribed for sleeping situations in space into a genuine human "filling station" to boost energy and performance.
The Munich Technical University was able to point to experience and references spanning many years based around their Chair in Space Technology held at that time by Johann Huber, who was responsible for the German team of scientists in Houston and who founded the Munich Space Chair 15 years ago.
Impressive efforts and personal commitment on the part of the manufacturer were shown by Tasso Schielke, an industrial designer and pilot who developed and gave his name to the TASSO Sleep products. His many years of experience in the field were essential in ensuring the success of the SpaceBed.
The next step in 2002 included successfull TASSO beds for the astronauts' training camp and the creation of sleep systems for the BioPlex program. A sealed biological system for the first station on Mars which NASA and european scientists are developing for trainings in the deserts of Utah.
