Centuries ago, Sir Isaac Newton said of his many discoveries that if he were to look any further, it was just ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. In the 21st century, space companies and countries may soon have a similar feeling about crawling on their backbone as they transplant the bleeding edge of an entire scientific system to sow the first human cities of Mars.
This titanic endeavor involves scientific fields that are so advanced that some have yet to mature. “There are some critical technologies that can not be solved yet. One of them is tunneling – one of the most important factors – you have to have the right tunnel solutions,” said founder and head of the ABIBOO architecture team Alfredo Munoz in a visual version said. interview with Interesting Engineering.
And inside these tunnels, ABIBOO plans to install giant buildings connected in larger “macro-buildings” by tunnels drilled into the inside of Mars’ cliffs. But before digging begins, technology must catch up with theory, ideal locations must be explored, we must transport construction teams and equipment, and produce sustainable materials from the Martian environment. In short, we need to build cities.
On Mars.
Building sustainable cities on Mars
“We need to be able to transfer initial goods – Elon Musk, SpaceX and other entities will be critical because Nüwa City is just the beginning of a bigger business,” Munoz said. But before the 250,000 residents can move in, the initial team of spatial engineers will have a major challenge. “We only have an opportunity every few years to take the city to a critical mass. We will need high, exponential growth until we have the technology for transportation.”
The first city on Mars will be called Nüwa and has tunnels with a diameter of 10 meters – ‘even with modern technology it can be solved’. The most challenging problem with conceiving a colony on Mars has been decades long enough to move material to another planet. Although a significant amount of fuel and money can be saved by launching a mission to orbit Mars from the moon, it is not very feasible to move enough material for even a few city blocks of about 54.6 million kilometers not, at least, to the Red Planet.
Important to the Nüwa City project is the fundamental design, “to construct and operate with few resources brought from Earth. We have to manufacture materials on Mars – that’s why we have five different cities – the total amount of resources can not obtained in one place. “Sustainability on earth means that you do not waste energy or resources if you can achieve the same or similar goal without polluting the environment. “Why do we want to bring materials from Bali to New York when we can manufacture in New York?” asks Munoz rhetorically. It’s not just about not harming the environment – but also about doing a lot with a little. “
The trick is to build the city on Mars “without damaging the water we are going to use in an economical, scalable way,” Munoz said. “It’s not just about the environment, but about using it wisely,” Munoz said.
Oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and a lot of steel
For any city to thrive (on Mars or Earth), however, you need plenty of water and carbon dioxide (CO2). “Steel is the material most used for the civil construction of the city. Another element essential for a critical path for Nüwa is transformation and production of oxygen,” Munoz continued. Although there have been many proposals to generate oxygen through vegetation, it is not enough for Munoz and ABIBOO to support a human city. “Based on what life support systems we have analyzed, [vegetation-generated oxygen] will not be enough alone. ‘NASA’s Perseverance Rover will conduct experiments to test various methods of obtaining oxygen on Mars. ABIBOO’s ‘nuclear scientists’ thought of transporting used air and breathing air – […] it’s almost the same idea as a fridge. ‘
‘Most of the hard work via civil engineering would be done by robotics’, but’ it would not be possible for humans to do [all] the work of the job – they can oversee robotics, “Munoz said. While it’s not a new idea to build on the side of a cliff with robots on Mars, ABIBOO’s plan is to to install tunnels. ” Macro buildings are basically a term we created – a very large building consisting of modules, where each module is a building for itself. ‘Similar to giant LEGO blocks with central heating.
‘Macro Buildings’ Designed to Destroy Every Challenge on Mars
Each macro-building will be 800 m wide, 200 m high and 150 m deep – about the width of Central Park, in New York City. “Each macro building consists of 12 modular buildings – each made of 3D tunnels that are interconnected in tunnels,” Munoz explained. But this is not a plan to repeat the cookie-cutter aesthetics of gentrified neighborhoods. “Each module differs from another,” using 12 different models to change the pattern and create a unique architecture.
Functionally, the mega-buildings will include workplace and residential modules – mixed, but conceptual, with some more residential and others more commercial. “Every macro-building is different from the others”, which offers a ‘great diversity, because no one is the same as another.’ The arrangement of the modules has not been determined, as the tunnels connect in different proportions, requiring a unique solution for each macro building.
The decision to build on the side of the cliffs is an educated one, because on Mars there are a lot of problems. The cliffs are teeming with solar radiation and provide a natural shield to levels of radiation that are higher than anywhere on earth. Another problem is air pressure (or lack thereof). “[I]Unlike problems on Earth where buildings fall, on Mars buildings can explode due to the pressure. Humans and animals need at least 0.7 times the atmospheric pressure “of the earth at sea level.” We have 80% atmospheric pressure inside the buildings, “and in a Martian atmosphere, if you constantly inflate a balloon to this internal pressure,” on some it will explode. ‘It will put a bad end to any city on Mars.
“The bigger the building, the more pressure – the amount of structure we need for the building increases and binds it to the ground,” because if a building contains air with a higher pressure than the external atmosphere, it finally lifts into the Martian sky. This means that the production of chemicals must take place inside thick silos to avoid an explosion due to the pressure difference. Other problems on Mars include the lower gravity and the loss of thermal heat for the external environment. By building underground, “you solve a lot of the problems,” Munoz said.
Nüwa could become the most advanced city ever built
Growing up in a cave underground, however, is not ideal for emotional well-being, and is unlikely to motivate most to move to Mars. “So we turned it 90 degrees. Everything is underground, and since we have access to the other side of the cliff, we can penetrate the cliff and bring in direct light, while also fully protecting people from some of the challenges.” The vegetation for food can be grown above the city, on a mesa for a “large concentration of energy for plants. People are not allowed inside and plants do not need much pressure.”
However, over the past decade, there have been other proposals to build cities into the cliffs of Mars. One concept from the Mars City Design competition in 2016 got the ancient city of Petra in the Jordan Desert. But ABIBOO’s proposal takes it a step further. ‘It is not uncommon to offer a solution on Mars that supports every realistic solution in the areas of life-support systems, planetary geology, astrophysics, space engineering, biology, artists, architects, astrobiology, mining experts, psychology, space law, “and more. SONet, a multidisciplinary team focused on sustainable settlements in other worlds, has provided such scientific expertise. In Nüwa and other future Mars cities, ABIBOO aims to use architecture as a way to create a creative identity. to build by mixing science and art, ‘so that we can create a more emotional connection with where we live.’
At the end of March, the estimated construction of Nüwa City, according to ABIBOO, would begin by 2054. But until we can place astronauts on the surface of Mars, it’s hard to predict when things can go on with certainty. “All critical pathways begin in the laboratory – [it] sounds realistic to say that we can start in 2054, but it depends on these other parts. If one of them is delayed, then that’s all, “Munoz explained. If SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, for example, decides to postpone plans for Mars, ABIBOO could change strategies.” We have to rely on analyzes done by previous astronauts Mars – we can not develop Nüwa City until we find the right place. ‘But once construction finally begins, the most technologically advanced human city could have an address change, one-way: from Earth to Mars.