Creating a Resilient Mars Habitat for Psychological and Physiological Wellbeing

Hello! I am a rising junior currently in high school. I took intro into CAD last year and have an interest in astronomy for a long time so I decided to make my habitat about Mars! Creating a habitat on Mars is a very big challenge to engineers and scientists. There are still limited information and studies on the environment, with the depths of Mars still mainly undiscovered. But so far, some things we know is that the Mars environment is deeply unsuited for life. It has almost no oxygen, no liquid water, is freezing cold, has dust storms, no UV protection, and other problems (I will list out later on). Through a lot of research, I designed a habitat that will mainly find a solution to the environmental and psychological/physiological challenges living on Mars will bring to humans, especially in isolation and the harsh Martians conditions.

• Internet access to do research
• Sketching paper/app
• Autodesk Autocad
• Autodesk Revit

The research phase is the most crucial step, but can also be very disorganized. Thus I organized all my information in a google doc. I read many articles and studies from sources like NASA, ESA, youtube videos, and a lot of websites. Then I created a list of problems, sorting into environmental and physiological/psychological

Environmental Challenges

1. No oxygen air; 95% CO2
2. Toxic soil to plants
3. Unstable and extremely cold temperatures
4. No clean drinking water
5. No protection against harmful UV and cosmic rays
6. Dust storms and dust contamination
7. Low gravity

Physiological/physical Challenges

1. Negative health effects (muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and increased risk of cancer)
2. Physiological problems of isolation

For each of these problems, I gathered all potential solutions in the doc.

With all the research I've done, I planned out many different designs but eventually decided on this one. It makes use of Mars' natural resources and ensures that the crew members are safely protected against all environmental, physiological, and physical problems.

The habitat will be located at a lower elevation and lower latitude because the higher the latitude, the more energy is required to launch a rocket (according to a NASA MAV sensitivity to latitude chart). It is important to consider this because rocket launches might be very important in the future for transporting goods like nutrient-rich nonperishable food, technology, etc., between Mars and Earth.

Next, liquid water only exists as ice or vapor on Mars, as Mars' air pressure is too low to maintain it, being less than 1% of Earth's. However, there are abundant underground shallow ice reservoirs near higher latitudes, some being within 0.3 meters of the surface! Unfortunately, because the habitat will be located at lower latitudes to be suitable for rockets, the robot will have to drill more than 5 feet down to find ice. This will be possible through a combination of a mechanical and hot water drill. The robot will use a mechanical drill to penetrate the overburden, then melt the ice with a hot water drill, and finally transport it to the water storage. The water storage will hold 80 tons of water, enough to support four people. The water will also be treated and recycled through filtration and reverse osmosis. Water from the sink, shower, and air can all be recycled and reused in the habitat’s closed system.

The main energy source will be a nuclear reactor located 1 kilometer away from our habitat’s base. This will be the most efficient option because it produces energy efficiently and isn't limited by the environmental conditions of Mars, unlike solar panels and windmills, which are affected by dust accumulation and minimal sunlight during dust storms. Due to its potential danger, the reactor is placed 1 kilometer away, with a wire bringing the energy back to the habitat. It will provide all the energy and light for the plants, electric stoves, TV, AC/heater, and other necessities.

Finally, the two domes will have membranes made of ETFE inflatable material to minimize the cost of transporting materials to Mars. The domes will be inflated and pressurized to 1 atm, the same pressure as on Earth. Then, a hollow regolith layer will be 3D printed by a robot, while 3 meters of regolith soil will fill it up inside. This will cause the regolith to exert the same amount of pressure on the inflatable habitat, so the minimal internal and external pressure difference will reduce the force on the membrane. With the pressure now the same as on Earth, growing plants will not be an issue, as liquid water will be able to exist. The regolith layer also provides many additional benefits: shielding against dust storms, UV radiation, cosmic radiation, and insulating against the cold Martian environment.

In the first dome (to the left), crew members can hang out, exercise, watch movies from CDs, play instruments, read, cook, and so on. There are no walls on the lower floor to lessen the feeling of confinement and increase interactions between the crew members. Upstairs, crew members can easily see what is happening downstairs in the open hallways. There are four private rooms for the crew to have privacy and sleep or relax. There is also a lounge upstairs where crew members can socialize.

The second laboratory dome can be reached by an open inflatable hallway to promote oxygen circulation. In this dome, plants are grown through vertical hydroponic farming to convert the toxic carbon dioxide into oxygen for humans. Through hydroponics, the problem of dangerous elements like perchlorate from using regolith as soil is eliminated. In the middle is the laboratory, used for research and analysis of the Martian environment. It is equidistant to the perimeters of the dome for efficiency.

On AutoCAD first, I decided to make the top view of all the two pods. The Mars regolith layer is three feet tall, and the pod where crew members lives each floor is 9 feet tall. In this process, array and blocks speeded up my process a lot. For the rooms of the crew members are use rotational array.

To design it on revit, first I had to make the ETPE pattern. So first, I created a membrane that would be the repeating pattern for the dome. After that I tested it out on a conceptual mass. I also made my own ETPE material which was transparent and white. And that is the final step! Thank you for reading!