Human Planet 2.0
An Eleven-Year-Old’s Vision of a Mars Habitat
Elon Musk and the rest of SpaceX are working on designing and building a rocket that can take people to Mars by 2026, by their predictions. However, doing so is only the first step; what happens when we get to Mars, and what will the habitat be like?
Those questions intrigued me, so I decided to design a hypothetical habitat, including the buildings we could live in on Mars one day. You’ll be seeing some pictures throughout, which I modeled in 3D using Tinkercad.
As a part of the design process, the problems associated with surviving on Mars have to be addressed, and the habitat has to designed and built in a way to overcome these problems. Let’s dive into the solutions for energy supply, breathing, drinking, eating, and the Martian atmosphere.
Energy Supply:
Energy is incredibly hard to come by on Mars. Due to its distance from the sun, solar energy is only 40% as effective as on Earth, and even this little sunlight is often obscured for days by huge dust storms. Wind and geothermal energy are also infeasible because there’s no atmosphere on Mars, and its core is much too cold.
Nuclear power might be the only option, but we would have to bring fuel and a reactor from Earth since there are no easily accessible radioactive materials on Mars. Nuclear power on a basic level is using radioactive elements, commonly uranium, to heat water to create steam, and generate electricity. A reactor like the one depicted below could power our habitat for a few decades.
Breathing:
Unfortunately, humans can’t breathe on Mars. There’s hardly any atmosphere, and the little atmosphere there is, is only 1% as dense as Earth’s. Its composition is 96% CO2, 2% Argon, and 2% Nitrogen, but we need Oxygen to breathe, and Mars has none in its atmosphere.
The habitat will need to be pressurized and have an artificial atmosphere. We could use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, through a process called electrolysis, as shown in the diagram below. The oxygen will be used for the atmosphere, and the hydrogen can be stored for other uses, such as rocket fuel.
Drinking:
There’s no easily accessible water on most of Mars’ surface, and most of the liquid water is under the surface. We would have to purify any water we find on Mars.
Luckily, if we build the habitat at one of Mars’ poles there will be an abundance of water, as there are thick layers of ice at both poles. We would only have to melt and purify the ice after we collect it, with a system like the one below.
Eating:
Mars’ soil is alkaline, and doesn’t have the nitrogen compounds that plants need to grow. We would have to decontaminate the soil before growing anything, which is a very slow and energy-intensive process. There are also a lot of challenges with bringing livestock to Mars for food; they take up a lot of space, oxygen, and food.
Aquaponics is likely the best option, raising fish and plants together. Aquaponics is a process using water to raise fish, and reusing the water to grow plants. The fish’s waste can also be used the fertilize the plants. The water is reused again for the fish, and so on the cycle goes, see below.
Mars Dust:
Mars dust is awful. It’s much finer than dust on Earth, and is also statically charged, sticking to everything… like spacesuits. It will be impossible to avoid carrying it into our habitats, where it would harm the crew. To make it worse, it’s filled with toxic perchlorate salts, and constant exposure could be deadly.
However, we can build our structures so that spacesuits don’t ever actually enter the habitat, instead they attach to the outside. This prevents anything unwanted from coming in, and precious oxygen from going out. Below depicts how suits would be attached to the outside of the buildings.
Radioactivity:
Mars has no magnetosphere or dense atmosphere like Earth, therefore half of all radiation coming from the sun reaches the ground. Someone on Mars would receive 50 times the radiation than on Earth. Three years on Mars would exceed the dose limits for NASA astronauts in their whole career, increasing cancer risks significantly.
The cut-away view below shows how we could shield our buildings with a layer of dry ice, gathered directly from Mars’ atmosphere. On top of the dry ice, we could add a layer of Martian soil to further increase protection. All of this still wouldn’t hold back all the radiation, but enough to make it survivable.
Pressure Differences and Shapes:
Building with traditional corners and flat walls would cause weak points because of the pressure differences between interior and exterior of any building on Mars. Other shapes like domes have unusable side and overhead spaces, and can sometimes be confining.
There’s a very simple solution to the pressure difference problem; the habitat should have a rounded, smooth shape, showcased in the picture below. AI SpaceFactory for their project MARSHA determined that cylindrical shapes provide good pressure containment, and maximize living space area versus volume, and are the easiest shape to 3D print.
Now that we’ve gotten past the problems, let’s focus on how we’ll build the habitats on Mars, and what materials we’ll use. The early habitats will likely be inflatable, but to set up a permanent habitat, we will likely 3D print the buildings. 3D printing is a much more efficient way of building, as it is automated and takes much less time than traditional building techniques. Since it requires no human interaction or assistance, the risk of problems is far lower. We would likely use a basalt-fiber-reinforced polylactic acid, PLA, as the main building material. PLA is a thermoplastic that is commonly used for 3D printing. The PLA will be reinforced with basalt fiber for extra strength. Basalt fiber is one of the most effective insulators known, and can be locally sourced, directly from the Martian surface.
The floors in the habitat will be separated by activities, each one having a designated purpose. The first floor will be dedicated to machinery and maintenance, the second floor for communal use, the third for sleeping and bathrooms, and lastly the fourth floor for exercise and recreational use, see floors below.
While SpaceX and NASA are designing and building rockets for getting to Mars in the next decade, getting there is only half the battle. What we do when we get there is a whole different story. Building a self-sustaining habitat will be one of the hardest challenges humanity has ever faced, requiring a group of the most determined and resolute people. But we like tough challenges, and we have a whole planet full of incredibly innovative people. We will overcome these challenges in our lifetime, and be able to live on Mars.
Credit: Shape idea and material from AI SpaceFactory — MARSHA
