H
umans are fragile beasts whose
sensitive biology needs a lot of
protecting. This is particularly true away from
the protective cocoon of our planet’s
atmosphere and magnetic field. If we’re to set
up shop elsewhere, we’re going to need to
fashion ourselves some decent
accommodation. Shipping a construction kit
from Earth is prohibitively expensive, so the
buzz acronym right now is ISRU – In Situ
Resource Utilisation. Which is a fancy way of
saying: use what’s already there.
Plans are already underway. In July 2018,
NASA announced the five winners of its R1.42
million ‘3D-Printed Habitat Challenge’ to
design a dwelling that would enable people to
live and work on Mars, and which could be
built using local materials and 3D-printing
technology. First place was awarded to Team
Zopherus of Rogers, Arkansas, who designedan uncrewed, robotic printer that would land
on the Martian surface and deploy rovers to
gather local materials. The European Space
Agency is also currently working out how to
3D-print building blocks for future space
habitats using lunar soil.
Putting up a habitat is a good start, but
looking longer-term we might want to
‘terraform’ our new home and make it more
Earth-like. This wholesale makeover means
fundamentally altering the atmosphere and
temperature to create an environment that’s
more amenable to liquid water and life. A
study published in June 2018 found that an
ancient group of microbes called
‘cyanobacteria’ can photosynthesise in
extremely low-light conditions, a boon that
could one day see them deployed in sheltered
areas on toxic planets to take in carbon
dioxide and pump out oxygen. Mars is onepossible candidate, although another recent
study suggests that the Red Planet might not
have enough carbon dioxide to do the job.
Fashioning a house is not the same as
making a home. For any colony to be
successful, its inhabitants have to function
as members of a fledgling society. That’s just
as much about the people as it is bricks and
mortar. The first settlers will need to draw up
a legal system to maintain law and order,
perhaps based on our current laws here on
Earth. Jobs will need to be created and
assigned to those with suitable skills, and
institutions will have to be set up quickly to
provide medical, educational and economic
services. Ideally, this will all be planned
before the spacegoers have left Earth, as
there’ll be enough to think about on our new
home without having to create a functioning
society on the hoof!BUILDING A HOME
Welcome to the space village
NASA X2, GETTY X3, ALAMY, AI SPACEFACTORY/PLOMPMOZES“THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY IS
CURRENTLY WORKING OUT HOW TO
3D-PRINT BUILDING BLOCKS FOR FUTURE
SPACE HABITATS USING LUNAR SOIL.”
Space