 If you want to live in space for months at a time, you're going to need a good house. And it's not going to be glamorous living either. Imagine living in a one-room tin can with three to four other people. And that tin can is keeping you alive. NASA wants to send humans back into deep space. But the last time people went beyond low Earth orbit, they stayed for less than two weeks per trip. This time around, NASA wants to send astronauts to live in deep space, orbiting the moon and then possibly on to Mars, for months at a time, like they do on the International Space Station. But what does a deep space habitat look like? NASA has partnered with six different private companies as part of their Next Step program to figure that out. Each company is researching and building deep space habitats, all with unique designs to see which modules will work best. And these habitats could be used as part of a new space station that NASA wants to build near the moon, called Gateway. I went to one of these companies, Lockheed Martin, to check out a mock-up of the deep space habitat that they're working on. So here we are in the prototype habitat that you guys are building for the Next Step program. So tell me about it. What informs its shape and size and all that stuff? We put together this prototype to get a better feel for what it would be like to live and work in a space station at the moon. So it's round because the launch vehicles are round, right? So we need to fit inside the payload fairing for launch. But we've also thought about what it would be like to live here. So you need all the standard things, food, water, shelter. You would have all your personal items, your clothes, your toothbrush, all those normal things. NASA hopes this will serve as a new outpost for astronauts, allowing them to conduct studies in the deep space environment around the moon and to travel to and from the lunar surface. But one challenge of sending things to deep space is space. Getting a habitat of this size far away from Earth in one piece requires a lot of fuel. And the larger the habitat, the more fuel it will require. That's why Lockheed is trying to do more with less. Standing in here right now, it's not that big of a space, but you envision people living and doing work here. So how would they utilize all of this limited space, if you will? Right. Can you imagine four people in this space? I have a problem with my tiny apartment and my dog, so I don't know. That's exactly what this is. It's one room, but it's four bedroom, one bathroom. But yeah, we'll have a science workstation where the crew can do their science experiments, get information from the vehicle, look at health and status. We have a treadmill and exercise equipment. Right. On the ceiling. But in space there is no ceiling. Right. Exactly. Whatever way you are is the right way up. So we can use all four walls we need to to get very effective use of this limited space. Of course, it's tough to get the full experience of living in this habitat here on Earth. This habitat is just a mock-up. Lockheed is currently building its first working Next Step prototype in Florida. So the company is using virtual and augmented reality to give engineers a better understanding of how the finished product will look and feel. So you ready to put that on? All right. I'm ready. I'm ready to go to space. All right. I hope I didn't break anything. Now you can go ahead and grab the wall and pull yourself through. Here I am. Home sweet home. And if you find your way there, you can go ahead and go outside. Oh, let's do that. How am I going to get over there? Whoa! Oh no! It's clear that I'm just a mess and zero gravity. So we've been using a lot of VR and AR technology to play around with the Next Step habitat. What is so great about these different types of technology that helps you with design and modifications and whatnot? Well, there's a few things that's really great about it. The first is affordability. It lets you perform a lot of reconfigurations while keeping things cheap. You saw with the AR goggles that you had on, you're able to see the different components that are going to be in the spacecraft, in the habitat. So it allows us to move them around and reconfigure and see the spacing of everything. You don't want to put your treadmill right next to your workstation and have somebody running and sweating right above you. And if you go ahead and build it without knowing those problems, you kind of have a big cost problem. Or if you actually do build out those big sized components, it's expensive and heavy and you have to actually move them around. AR really helps a lot with that. And VR really helps a lot with training too. As you saw with the simulation, you kind of got a little bit of a sense of what it's like to be in the spacecraft. And so on the ground we can train astronauts or the crew just, you know, how to move around. Maneuvering in space isn't as easy as people might think. You know, you turn your hand a certain way and it doesn't, your whole body moves with you. Yeah, Newton's third law. It's pretty crazy. Right now this program is just for engineers, not for astronauts. However, astronauts going to the ISS actually do lots of VR training to prepare for space. This one? There we go. Grab the block. Wait, I did? Yep. If this station does go to the moon, VR trainings will be important before heading there too. What are the things that you think of when you go out to design a habitat? What are the essentials that you need? Well, we think about what is a day in the life of an astronaut going to look like? They're going to wake up, they're going to eat breakfast, they're going to perform science. We want to know what it takes to keep them alive as well as what work they're going to do in science they're going to perform while they're there. So we need to accommodate all those aspects, keeping them healthy and keeping them productive. Now you mentioned a one bathroom. Where's the bathroom going to be? It's actually on Orion. Right through this hatch is where the crew would come to the habitat in Orion and the bathroom is there. At least you have some privacy. Orion is much more than just a bathroom. It's a crew capsule that Lockheed Martin is also working on to transport people from Earth to deep space. And once Orion reaches this habitat, it'll have to dock. Explain this setup for me. Sure, we're sitting in the Orion crew simulator. Gotcha. So this is the cockpit. This is where the pilot and the commander would sit as they fly Orion to dock to the gateway. So we've been traveling for months and months and months and now we're finally here and ready to dock. I've been waiting for this day my whole astronaut life basically. So if you pull out on that, that'll slow you down. Okay. Or you can push in and fire thruster to speed us up. Docking turned out to be pretty tense. Just one small movement can send the capsule veering off in the wrong direction. Okay, so I'm veering off to the right. So I think I want to go to the left. Almost there. Almost there. So close. Oh, here we go. Coming in right on the target. Oh! Perfect docking. That is beautiful. Okay, just a little bit off, but man, nailed it. Successful. Of course, it could be a while before this happens. Lockheed and the other Next Step finalists will need to finish building and testing out their habitats before this deep space outpost becomes a reality. So it might not be the most spacious, but like all real estate, it's all about location. If you're interested in more science videos from The Verge, check out our new Verge Science YouTube channel and subscribe.