A View of Future Human Colonies on Mars

A Hybrid Power System for a Permanent Colony on Mars

“…A device capable of using local water, ice, and atmospheric CO 2 as raw materials for fuel, air, water, plastics food, and other supplies. However, this concept will fall into oblivion for more than 10 years [16][17][18]. Afterwards, [19] points out the need for further research about the Martian environment before they could design landers, space suits, and other surface systems.…”

“…The more was discovered, the least money available for a manned mission was available. Then, [16,17] present concepts for self-sustaining Mars colonies by means of implementing ISRU. In [16], the 500 people colony site is selected in the North polar cap due to the water/ice available, while [17] focuses on obtaining water from the atmosphere, to avoid site dependency, envisioning a modular architecture capable of either 100, 1000, or 10000 crew scenarios.…”

“…Then, [16,17] present concepts for self-sustaining Mars colonies by means of implementing ISRU. In [16], the 500 people colony site is selected in the North polar cap due to the water/ice available, while [17] focuses on obtaining water from the atmosphere, to avoid site dependency, envisioning a modular architecture capable of either 100, 1000, or 10000 crew scenarios. Following this trend, [18] is aimed at implementing an ISRU system to support propulsion and power systems for ground and flight vehicles in two scenarios, an Antarctica-inspired 100 people scenario and another terraforming scenario with a crew of 10000.…”

“…In the commuter architecture, any planetary structure can be divided into 8 categories: habitats, laboratories, bioregenerative life support, ISRU, surface mobility (rovers), extravehicular mobility (eva suits), power system, and launch and landing area. All of them contain similar equipment such as windows, hatches, docking mechanisms, power distribution systems, life support, environmental control, safety features, stowage, waste management, communications, airlocks, and egress routes [9,13,17]. It is worth mentioning that rovers in this scenario are assumed to have a range of 100 km before needed resupply [7]; however, there is already available technology to get significantly larger ranges [42].…”

“…Disregarding the mobility range and the number of rovers, the habitats are always expected to keep a minimum of occupation due to safety measures [24]. Then, with an increasing population and expected duration of the colony, the number and purpose of the habitats change dramatically; if for a 6 people colony, habitats only include the bare minimum survival needs [7,9]; a 100 people colony demands the existence of recreation facilities such as shops, open community spaces, parks, and public transportation [17].…”