Martian Habitats: A Review

Title

Martian Habitats: A Review

Creator

Subbiah M.S.; Quiros B.

Description

Establishing colonies in Lunar and Martian environments is the major task of our primary means to become a multi-planetary civilization. The Space Exploration Initiative (SEI), administered by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, was the first spark that ignited humanity's vision to establish space settlements beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) (Marc M. Cohen, 2015). At present, private space companies (like SpaceX and Blue Origin) are competing to be the first ones to colonise space. From the late 1980s to the present space race, many space habitat designs to suit human factors, ensure protection from space radiation, and be capable of regulating our day-to-day activities have been proposed for both lunar and martian settlements, respectively. In this paper, only Martian settlements are focused, and the reason for that follows next. While the moon is closer to Earth than Mars, Mars has several other advantages that make it an equal, if not a better candidate for colonisation. Some of the reasons why martian colonisation is preferred over lunar colonization include the presence of an atmosphere on Mars, its resource-rich nature, and its rotation period being closer to Earth's rotation period (Mars has 24.5 hours per day, while the moon has 28-day days) (Kamrun Narher Tithi, 2017). Another added advantage is its proximity to the main belt asteroids, which will further increase the potential for space mining in the future. So this paper will be a review of the various Martian habitat designs proposed over the last one and a half decades in terms of their designs, construction and challenges. To do so, it is assumed that every step associated with delivering the habitats to the Martian environment is achievable. These steps include the following: propulsion systems for long-term spaceflights; launch vehicles capable of lifting the habitats and fitting the habitat modules within them (Marc M. Cohen, 2015). Copyright 2023 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.

Source

Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC, Vol-2023-October

Date

2023-01-01

Publisher

International Astronautical Federation, IAF

Subject

habitats; maritan settlements; Mars

Coverage

Subbiah M.S., Department of Physics and Electronics, Christ University, Dharmaram College Post, Hosur Road, Bengaluru, 560029, India; Quiros B., ULACIT, Costa Rica

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISSN: 741795

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Conference paper

Identifier

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85187986013&partnerID=40&md5=5efcb349ce41f899feee9fa16d83f268