Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-06)

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42 June 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com

AXA OUTDOORS’ campers and

trailers all have a similar look.

They’re alien and angular, like

a Lego Bionicle action figure.

There’s more than a little Chinese-

takeout-container influence there, too. And

then, on the inside: pure spaceship.

That last one makes sense when you

consider that the company’s founder and

designer, Garrett Finney, used to be the

senior architect at the NASA Habitabil-

ity Design Center. He focused on making

astronauts comfortable and productive in

the cramped confines of the International

Space Station. “The ISS engineers made

something people could survive in. But we

had to think about how you could survive

well,” Finney says. That meant address-

ing questions such as where would I put a

picture of my family? or how do I change

my clothes? without upsetting the tight

balance of energy, efficiency, and resource

needs that the ISS already had.

And it worked. Finney’s insights helped

astronauts limit stress, deal with unforeseen

issues, and, ultimately, stay more produc-

tive—all things that, sure, to a slightly less

life-or-death extent, also apply to camping.

When he left NASA after ten years,

Finney says, “I kept thinking about interac-

tive systems like air, water, food, and people

in motion. I looked at people with really big

RVs and thought, Wow, there is a real oppor-

tunity to be thoughtful about people in small

spaces.” So Finney began designing a fleet

of campers and trailers that could incorpo-

rate humans in the system as much as the

space station did.

His first step was fitting a camper into

the lives people already had, so he kept the

weight under 3,020 pounds, something

towable by a minivan or small RV. And he

didn’t want the unexpected cost of renting

a space to store it, so he made it no taller or

wider than a car so it would fit in the garage.

The small size came with another impor-

tant benefit: “If it’s small enough to fit in a

DRIVING

Bringing the minimalist comforts of

space habitats to the campsite.

/ BY JAMES LYNCH /

A NASA Architect

Designed a Camper