The perfect boring situation-Addressing the experience of monotony during crewed deep space missions through habitability design

While the challenge of monotony has been pointed out as an exploration-related research area, it has received less explicit attention from a habitation design perspective than other human behaviour and performance issues. The paper addresses this gap through a literature review of the theory and application of design-based mitigation strategies. It outlines models of emergence of monotony, situates the phenomenon in a remote mission context as a problem of sensory, social and spatio-temporal isolation, and discusses proposed countermeasures related to habitability. The scope of the literature is extended to primary sources in the form of a qualitative review of six onboard diaries from orbital and simulator missions, highlighting a range of habitat-related design themes. These are translated into the autonomous deep space setting with the overall rationale of integrating affordances into onboard habitation systems and placing emphasis on reinforcing positive situational characteristics.