While all the large-scale space companies were busy developing the spacecraft that would finally enable commercial spaceflight to become a reality, they overlooked one small thing – kettles. Ok well actually not just kettles, but also all sorts of other appliances and items, from kitchen appliances to in flight entertainment systems. That is where Space Kettle comes in! Space Kettle’s is a collaborative public database of designs that allow regular earth appliances to function as usual in space settlements, despite significantly different gravity, radiation and pressure conditions the will experience by pulling the solution to your design problem from a collaborative public database, Space Kettle helps to ensure lower cost and quicker development than trying to create all of these essential devices on your own.
Unlike other Subcontractors, Space Kettle is also a real-world organisation, founded by previous UKSDC competitors. They work in partnership with the Space Science and Engineering Foundation and the UKSDC and are looking for students to get involved and submit their own designs to their design database, with the best designs getting the chance to feature here as part of this subcontractor. For more information please check out Space Kettle.
Space Kettle has designs for all of your potential space appliance needs, be it microgravity kettles or radiation-proof ovens. Due to Space Kettle’s partnership with ElectroProtect, all appliances come built in with sufficient radiation shielding for standard operations within the solar system, although they are still unable to survive major solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Due to this longstanding partnership, standard Space Kettle appliances have managed to reduce costs to a level comparable with high-end appliances available on earth (use Miele appliances as a benchmark where available). However, for more niche applications, Space Kettle will also offer additional customisation packages for their appliances to deal with other challenges they may face in space.
Firstly, for operations in environments with an atmospheric oxygen percentage exceeding 30%, appliances will require additional features to make them fire-safe, which comes at an additional 50% cost to the customer. For operations in an atmosphere with a total pressure below 0.2 Earth atmospheres, this additional cost rises from 50% to 100% on top of Space Kettle’s standard price, as the appliances must be made air-tight and pressurized.
Secondly, Space Kettle offers the option of devices which can operate outside of standard Earth gravity conditions. For devices that must operate in environments between 0.25 and 0.5g, this additional cost is only 25% on top of the standard appliance price, although this rises to a 50% additional cost for operations in environments below 0.25g.