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According to NASA's Space Shuttle Basics page, the Space Shuttle had 74.3 cubic meters (2,625 cubic feet) of pressurized cabin space. That provided its largest crew of 8 with only 328 cubic feet per person! (roughly 7ft in all directions)

That leaves me wondering: which space vehicle has/had the most interior pressurized cabin space? Are all so small?

Dan Sorensen
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2 Answers2

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The space vehicle with the largest interior pressurised cabin volume is the International Space Station with a pressurised volume of 931.57 m3. It's habitable volume of 388 m3 is only slightly larger than Skylab, which had a habitable volume of 351.6 m3.

Habitable space tends to be limited to the minimum in orbiters and proposed interplanetary craft to reduce the mass, requiring less fuel or being able to use current rockets to launch the space craft. Space stations are able to be larger as they are built in modules, their subsequent sections are combined to calculate the total final volume.

List of manned spacecraft and their pressurised/habitable volumes past and present. All volumes with a * are habitable volumes (usually significantly smaller than total pressurised volume).

Current

  1. ISS: 931.57 m3, 388 m3*
  2. Tianggong-2: 14 m3
  3. Soyuz MS: 10.5 m3 (Largest Soyuz craft according to this table)
  4. ShenZhou: 8 m3

Past

Proposed

Bigelow Aerospace has proposed a possible space station with a habitable volume of 3000 m3. This would be by far the largest manned spacecraft.

† The Shuttle habitable volume only includes the basic crew cabin, without any additional habitable modules (as pointed out by @OrganicMarble in the comments)

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Edlothiad
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    Your conclusion is correct, but not the part about Shuttle. Its cabin volume differed, and was much larger, if the mission included a Spacelab or Spacehab in the payload bay. It also varied depending on whether the Orbiter was fitted with an internal or external airlock. – Organic Marble Feb 20 '18 at 13:11
  • @OrganicMarble if I understand you correctly, you're saying the size of the crew cabin changed depending on what was in the payload bay? I've just taken my information from the linked page, and looking about haven't found any other numbers. – Edlothiad Feb 20 '18 at 13:21
  • Yeah, those modules were habitable volumes linked to the basic crew cabin. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/diagram-showing-three-ways-in-which-the-spacelab-module-could-be-on-picture-id90738990 – Organic Marble Feb 20 '18 at 13:22
  • @OrganicMarble so the basic crew cabin was 74.3 cubic metres? Then, in my opinion pointing it out as such is sufficient for now. – Edlothiad Feb 20 '18 at 13:26
  • Sure, as you wish. But the OP is underestimating the volume per crewmember for shuttle, those big crews were on Spacelab or Spacehab missions. – Organic Marble Feb 20 '18 at 13:28
  • When I look closer into volume per person I'll try to find more accurate data for the various STS' and missions with larger volumes. – Edlothiad Feb 20 '18 at 13:33
  • I'll post a supplemental answer. – Organic Marble Feb 20 '18 at 13:34
  • What's the difference between pressurized volume and habitable volume for the ISS? The space taken up by equipment? – Hobbes Feb 20 '18 at 14:13
  • @Hobbes: my understanding is that the shuttle had 3 pressurized decks, but only two were available to crew. The bottom deck required pulling up the removable floorboards to reach storage and access equipment. – Dan Sorensen Feb 20 '18 at 14:18
  • @Hobbes supposedly, everything that's filled with experiments, equipment, machines, etc. I myself was surprised by the significant difference. – Edlothiad Feb 20 '18 at 14:26
  • I think you meant 'interplanetary', not 'interstellar', so i went ahead and changed that. – kim holder Feb 20 '18 at 14:36
  • What's the distinction between a pressurized volume and a habitable one? If it's pressurized, why isn't it also "habitable"? – Harabeck Feb 20 '18 at 23:09
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    @Harabeck Because, as above, the space could be filled with equipment, storage, machines, etc. It certainly is "habitable" but it's not a space a human could live in, as they wouldn't fit, or whatever – Edlothiad Feb 20 '18 at 23:10
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Supplemental answer to Edlothiad's (which reaches the correct conclusion).

Shuttle cabin volume varied based on its configuration and whether a habitable module was flown in the payload bay.

  • Crew cabin with internal airlock - 70 m^3
  • Crew cabin with external airlock - 76 m^3
  • Crew cabin with external airlock and tunnel adapter - 80 m^3
  • Crew cabin, external airlock, tunnel adapter, and Spacehab - 117 m^3
  • Crew cabin, external airlock, tunnel adapter, and Spacehab double module - 150 m^3

Spacelab volume was approximately 60 m^3, its flights included a tunnel adapter as well. It's been so long since it flew, I can't find detailed information.

Source: SMS Systems Console Handbook

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Organic Marble
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