Mars explorers could live in "Igloo" near the North Pole of Red Planet

A new study suggests that Mars explorers could live in an igloo-like structure near the red-frozen north pole of the red planet, in order to take advantage of seasonally abundant solar energy in this region.

The Martian poles are famous among scientists for their deposits of layers of ice and dust, as well as for containing perchlorate. Perchlorate is commonly used as fuel for the rocket on Earth, and some microbes, in fact, capture energy.

According to the new concept of Mars-Outpost – described by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), the base initially welcomed humans to the surface for a period of 288 days: the North Pole is bathed in sunshine permanently. [How Will a Human Mars Base Work? NASA’s Vision in Images]

The outpost would be covered with a dome of polyethylene fiber wrapped in a layer of ice 3 meters thick – a bit like an igloo.

Under the dome would be a central core, which would include the living space, and three capsules that would serve as airlock between this space and the outside. As the dome would cover the nucleus and capsules, it would protect Mars explorers from radiation and micrometeorite attacks and would also maintain constant internal atmospheric pressure.

"The poles can be more problematic at first, but they are the best place for the long term because they are home to natural resources that we could use," writes Anne-Marlene Rüede, a student in mineralization in space technology at The Center space engineering of EPFL, said in a statement from the EFPL.

"We wanted to develop a strategy based on technologies selected accordingly and define a test scenario so that, in 20 years, the astronauts can carry out this type of space mission," she added.

Explorers would live on the land for at least nine months at a time, collecting water, oxygen, and nitrogen from nearby ice. Carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, as well as silicon, iron, aluminum and sulfur in the soil, could be used to make bricks, glass, plastic and fuels (hydrogen or methanol).

This is how mission planning will work. First, the robots would fly alone in the northern polar region to create a small living space for the crew and search for locally available natural resources.

The crew would come next. During the second mission, the astronauts would use a sort of crane system that would orbit around Mars and move spacecraft over the surface of the planet.

"The crane vehicle could be reused multiple times and would be fueled by fuel produced on Mars.This would reduce the payload that space shuttles would have to haul up to the research base," said the co-author of the Study Claudio Leonardi, scientist at EPFL. said in the same statement. "The mooring system of the vehicle would be similar to that of the International Space Station: once the shuttle docked, the vehicle would unload the cargo and crew and drop them off on Mars."

Researchers envision the base of initially supporting a crew of six explorers. But implementing the idea could lead to even bigger things, said the study team members.

"We had to carry out an initial mission to try everything for the first time," said Rüede. "And the more thoughtful the initial mission, the sooner we can get things done and move on to colonization."

The study was accepted for publication in the journal Acta Astronautica. It was also presented last week at the conference on international conferences on tourism in Vixouze, France.

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