A Region on Mars Called Silica Valley Could Help Us Build Fiberglass Space Habitats

NASA has spend the past few years askingarchitects , engineers , and designersoutside of the place industry to suppose about habitat - building on the Red Planet – in part through contention like the3D - Printed Habitat Challenge .

The contention , which wrapped up this fall , asked interior decorator to imagine how regain materials on the surface of Mars could be used to produce social structure with large - musical scale 3D impression . Ultimately , a design that used water to publish igloo - flair ice habitatswon out . But there were loads of finalist worth looking at , and this calendar week MIT ’s architecture schoolpublished a tight lookat their own finalist entry .

Their proposal , calledOuroboros , is n’t remarkable for the intent of the habitat itself : Their inflatable torus - shaped abode is alike to mind NASA has beenkicking around for years . What ’s really interesting about their proposal is how they proposed building it – and from what materials . The squad of architects , along with engineering students , get along up with the idea of weaving a super - stiff cloth that could be inflated using what they could discover on Mars ’ surface and atmosphere .

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They focalize in on a area of Mars prognosticate Silica Valley – where the Spirit Rover detected that the soil was as much as 60 per centum silica . Back in 2007 , when NASAannouncedthe discovery of the region , it speculated that the “ patch of bright - toned soil ” was “ so copious in silica that scientist pop the question water must have been involved in pore it , ” a hypothesis that has sound a lot more plausible in lightness of NASA ’s recent announcement aboutwater on Mars .

Silica - rich soil charge by Spirit . NASA /JPL - Caltech / Cornell

Silica , of course , is one of the naked materials needed to make chalk , which could be extruded in its molten form , creating thread of fiberglass to be “ weave ” using a task - specific loom . That fibreglass would make a secure , light exoskeleton for the domicile , though the team also knew they would take some form of air - tight credit card to check a pressurization .

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“ We noticed that the atmospherical and territory report bear the necessary compounds to make thermoplastics , ” says Caitlin Meuller , an adjunct prof of edifice technology , in a picture about the undertaking . A mathematical group of engineering students came up with the idea of creating plastics using those chemical compound by “ synthesizing the polypropylene needed to make the thermoplastic composite form hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere . ” That thermoplastic resin would be woven with the fibreglass and together , heated until they create a bonded anatomical structure .

The task ended up not being chosen as a succeeder , but it ’s a great representative of the kind of thinking about Mars that NASA is hope to see more of – in fact , when this competition wrap up this month , the agency launched a second challenge focalize specifically on usingMartian filth and rocks for modular construction .

In an odd agency , this approach to colonizing Mars take over a lot from current idea on Earth about building with local materials . While we suppose of Mars as a homogenous ruby smoothing iron - scape , it in reality has a diverse composing that can be used to settlers ’ advantage – just like Earth .

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