MARS RESEARCH

“When designing skyscrapers on Earth we have to think about the impact of earthquakes, hurricanes, wind and gravity, but when designing a habitat on Mars they are not driving factors for design. Instead, it’s all about the huge temperature differences between night and day, which threaten to shrink or expand the building fabric, and the internal air pressure, which is greater than the thin atmosphere and threatens to expand the envelope. The physics is the same on other planets, but it plays out very differently.” - Jeffrey Montes, Space architect, AI’s SpaceFactory TEMPORARY VS. PERMANENT HABITATION Long term permanent habitats require much more volume (i.e. greenhouse) and thick shielding to minimize the annual dose of radiation received. This type of habitat is too large and heavy to be sent to Mars, and must be constructed making use of some local resource. Possibilities include covering structures with ice or soil, excavating subterranean spaces or sealing the ends of an...

ENERGY storage facilities, solar panels , nuclear reactors / nuclear-power fission systems as a base-line source power that is not affected by the dust storms, power storage systems (batteries, storing power for the night time plus during global dust storms, when the temperature drops and reduced sunlight reaches the surface) Wired systems might lay the groundwork for early crewed landings and basesm by producing various consumables including fuel, oxidisers, water and construction materials. Estabishing power, communications, shelter, heating and manufacturing basics can begin with robotic systems, if only as a prelude to crewed operations. Number of robotic cargo missions would be undertaken first in order to transport the requisite equipment, habitats and supplies.Equipment that would be necessary would include "machines to produce fertiliser, methane and oxygen from Mars' atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice" as we...

Revolutionary 3D-printing method dubbed Contour Crafting (CC), which made it possible to print a 2,500-square-foot building in less than a day on Earth in 2004. In 2016 first prize in the NASA In-Situ Materials Challenge , for Selective Separation Sintering -  a 3D-printing process that makes use of powder-like materials found on Mars and works in zero-gravity conditions. Other approaches, like taking inflatables, also wouldn't work. Inflatables are made of polymeric material, like vinyl, so they won't survive long because the radiation on Mars is pretty intense. Radiation is the enemy of polymers, causing it to become weak and fragile. In space, the environments are so hostile to humans that robotics will have to play a major role in preparing those places for the future of humanity. Before we start building, what will the robots need to set up? On Earth, there would be people to install the 3D printers, connect them to an energy line of some sort -- like a powe...

Extracting oxygen and metals from regolith by a single-step electrolysis of the minerals The efficient production of in-situ oxygen and metals can be accomplish in a single step by Molten Regolith Electrolysis (MRE) in which metal oxides are directly reduced by electrolysis. MOLTEN REGOLITH ELECTROLYSIS / MRE (using electricity to break down silicates into their base components in a single step) - building materials from martian soil. Metallic alloy that can be used for construction while simultaneously releasing oxygen that can be used for life support system (MRE is only one-step process to separate oxygen from metals). MRE is the only existing technology to deliver metals in their molten form, suited for easy retrieval and casting for future use. vysledok - kyslik a kovy v roztavenej forme extrahovane z regolithu.

Mars has long been considered a “sulfur-rich planet”, a new construction material composed of simulated Martian soil and molten sulfur is developed. In addition to the raw material availability for producing sulfur concrete and a strength reaching similar or higher levels of conventional cementitious concrete, fast curing, low temperature sustainability, acid and salt environment resistance, 100% recyclability are appealing superior characteristics of the developed Martian Concrete. Furthermore, since Martian soil is metal rich, sulfates and, potentially, polysulfates are also formed during high temperature mixing, which might contribute to the high strength. The optimal mix developed as Martian Concrete has an unconfined compressive strength of above 50 MPa . In conclusion, the developed sulfur based Martian Concrete is feasible for construction on Mars for its easy handling, fast curing, high strength, recyclability, and adaptability in dry and cold environments. Sulfur is abund...

Highly Reliable and Massively Redundant Life Support Architecture  The lungs of our planet – the forests, grasslands, marshes, and oceans – revitalize our atmosphere, clean our water, process our wastes, and grow our food by mechanically PASSIVE methods. Nature’s passive systems operate using biological and chemical processes that do not depend upon machines and provide sufficient, redundant cells that the failure of one or a few is not a problem.  WATERWALLS is a life support system that is biologically and chemically passive, using mechanical systems only for plumbing to pump fluids such as gray water from the source to the point of processing. Each cell of the WW system consists of a polyethylene bag or tank with one or more FO membranes to provide the chemical processing of waste. WW provides four principal functions of processing cells in four different types plus the common function of radiation shielding:  1. Gray water processing for urine and wash water ...

Artificial ecosystem which recycles urine, faeces and CO2 from the respiration of the crew, and provides water, food and oxygen. it takes waste from the astronaut (the exhaled CO2, faeces, kitchen waste,..) and then slowly transforms it for use in plant growth and it’s these plants which will provide food/tomatoes, beetroot, lettuce. but also through photosynthesis it will produce oxygen, capture CO2 and produce water. creating miniature earth in completely air tight container. spirulina, green micro algae capable of total autonomy, producing oxygen in large quantities. The concept is based on five interconnected compartments operating independently which are colonized by anaerobic thermophilic bacteria, photoheterotrophic bacteria, nitrifying bacteria, photoautotrophic bacteria and superior plants. Each of the compartments has a specific function assigned to it in order to reach the overall objective, which is none other than to transform the waste into supplies: Compartmen...

A n artificial, materially closed ecological system . Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in Outer Space. In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology. Its seven biome areas were rainforest, ocean with coral reef, mangrove wetlands, savannah grassland, fog desert and agricultural system and human habitat living spaces, laboratories and workshops. Below the ground was an extensive part of the technical infrastructure. The second closure experiment achieved total food sufficiency and did not require injection of oxygen . The Lunar Greenhouse , a second prototype of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center which seeks to understand how to grow vegetables on the Moon or Mars ...