Space Work Station

Mars has long exerted a fascination on humankind even though the planet and fantasies we project on to it frequently fail to live up to our expectations. For centuries, astronomers, writers and rock stars alike have posed the red-hot question: is there life on the Red Planet (so-called because of the iron oxide on its surface that gives it a dramatic reddish glow)?

There’s a rational basis to this line of enquiry, which perhaps explains why it is perennially intriguing: evidence of dried-out rivers and lakes on Mars’s mountainous surface suggest that it could be the only planet in the solar system, aside from Earth, to harbour intelligent life, although this remains frustratingly unproven.

“Mars is very much in the air,” says Justin McGuirk, curator of Moving to Mars, an exhibition held at London’s Design Museum earlier this year. “There’s a cyclical interest in Mars – the last cycle being in the 1970s.”

Yet the odds against populating Mars are extremely high, he stresses. “Living and working on Mars would be about basic survival,” he acknowledges. “It’s a very hostile, cold environment for humans. People like Elon Musk talk about a mass migration to Mars from Earth, but our exhibition wasn’t advocating this: we didn’t propose Mars as Planet B. We see it like a scientific research expedition to the Antarctic involving a small group of people.”

Interviewed in the exhibition catalogue, Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the 1990s sci-fi trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, concurs: “There’s nothing on Mars we can bring back that we don’t already have here… Really, it’s about scientific research. NASA will likely team up with other national space programmes some day and land scientists on Mars. At that point it will be like Antarctica – a research site where scientists and support workers arrive, work for a couple of years, then return to Earth.” Life on Mars would therefore be inextricably linked to work.

“Lots of things have to be overcome on Mars,” says astronomer and writer, Stephen James O’Meara, author of new book Mars, published by Reaktion Books. “There are extreme swings in temperature – from as much as 70°F during the day to -150°F at night at the equator and much colder elsewhere. The average surface temperature on Mars is 57°F to -80°F.”

Compared with Earth, Mars has a thin, low-pressure atmosphere that prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. Unlike on Earth, there is no evidence that Mars has a structured global magnetic field that would shield it from harmful radiation from the Sun, although it does have localised pockets of magnetised fields. “You get up to 700 times more radiation on Mars than on Earth,” continues O’Meara. “There’s also almost no oxygen on Mars.”

“There is no life on Mars that isn’t thoroughly sealed off,” says McGuirk. “Astronauts don’t feel wind in their faces or soil on their fingers. Their environments are thoroughly mediated and designed. Their hermetic habitations will need to recycle as much as possible and reduce waste.” Almost by default, Mars is a place where humankind could test ideas about sustainability.

Yet, for better or worse, the obsession with investigating and colonising Mars is skyrocketing – never mind that it is 34 million miles from Earth when the two planets are nearest to each other and that the journey takes about seven months. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are developing the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, intended as the main crew vehicle for potential flights to Mars. This summer, the US and, for the first time, the United Arab Emirates and China propelled spacecraft to Mars. The US’s Perseverance rover incorporates devices for examining Martian soil for signs of microbe-like life.

One reason for the continued interest in Mars is that inhabiting it is becoming more feasible. Another is that eminent scientists and engineers argue that is a necessity for humankind to colonise Mars – and so become a multiplanetary species – to ensure its survival. In 2017, at the Starmus astronomy and space exploration festival, Stephen Hawking pronounced apocalyptically that the human race would need to start colonising Mars and the Moon within 30 years to avoid being wiped out by overpopulation, climate change or an asteroid hitting Earth. Next year, the festival will celebrate the exploration of Mars to mark the 50th anniversary of the first soft landing on the Red Planet by Soviet robotic space probe Mars 3 in 1971. Meanwhile, a possibly highly optimistic Musk argues that humankind must colonise Mars to reduce the risk of its extinction. His California-based venture SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company, aims to establish a city on Mars that will accommodate one million people. SpaceX is building its reusable Starship spacecraft, which will eventually be capable of transporting up to 100 people around the solar system. Each Starship will measure 9m in diameter and have an unusually large and sophisticated interior. It will contain 40 cabins, each with a window, electricity and connection to an intranet.

Design was the main focus of Moving to Mars, which exhibited over 150 objects relating to the age-old cult of the Red Planet. It displayed early maps of Mars by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli created in the 1870s; sci-fi movies and novels, a prototype of the Rosalind Franklin rover, part of the international ExoMars programme led by ESA and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation, scheduled to launch in 2022; state-of-the-art spacesuits; fashion designer Christopher Raeburn’s New Horizons collection made of repurposed solar blankets and parachutes – a make-do-and-mend approach suited to the reality of limited resources on Mars – and a hydroponic system for growing food in water containing added nutrients rather than in soil.

Raeburn’s New Horizons collection was developed with London-based architect Hassell. The clothing is printed with images from Hassell’s Mars Habitat project, designed for NASA’s 2018 international 3D-Printed Habitat challenge. This competition invited architects to design a sustainable shelter for a crew of four astronauts, made of materials found on Mars and constructed using 3D printing. “In collaboration with structural engineers Eckersley O’Callaghan, we set out to design the perfect habitat for explorers on the Red Planet,” explains Xavier De Kestelier, one of its designers.

Mars’s harsh conditions have led many to conclude that it is best to build dwellings for astronauts before they arrive on the planet – an approach reliant on the use of autonomous robots already placed on Mars. Another reason for this approach is that transporting prefabricated buildings from Earth to Mars would be prohibitively expensive, increasing fuel costs.

“Mars Habitat’s robots would use loose rocks and dust found on Mars’s surface, called ‘regolith’, as a building material which would be 3D printed and bonded using microwave technology,” elaborates De Kestelier.

“The robots then layer this to form a huge outdoor shell about 1.5m thick with several entrances and a central courtyard that draws indirect light inside while protecting the astronauts from deadly radiation. Under the shell would be interconnected inflatable pods with pressurised interiors to cope with the atmosphere outside. Spherical forms and curved interiors are best suited to this.”

Another high-profile project constructed by robots using 3D-printed regolith is Foster + Partners’ Lunar Habitation, a lunar base for four astronauts, conceived for ESA in 2012. This would incorporate artificial skylights, computer workstations, hydroponic planters and a communal lounge.

“Ultimately, our aim was to bring a more human element to space design – to go beyond ticking the boxes of safety and survival,” says De Kestelier. “We wanted to create a home away from home where astronauts can carry out the most important work in space exploration to date. Mars Habitat’s interior is tactile with curvy forms – we didn’t want the clean-cut, plasticky look you get in sci-fi movies. The floor is made of bamboo.”

Space habitats were often designed by engineers rather than architects and designers, he points out. “One exception is industrial designer Raymond Loewy who consulted on the plans for Skylab, America’s first space station, and made design recommendations to NASA from 1967 to 1973. He is best remembered for insisting that Skylab have windows. In the original design, the engineers thought them unnecessary but they ended up being the favourite spot for the astronauts to hang out.”

Gianfranco Visentin, head of the Automation and Robotics Section at ESA, brings up other challenges involved with exploring Mars: “It’s very expensive – the journey there consumes huge amounts of fuel. And all work would have to be done by day because of extremely cold temperatures at night.” However, he notes that older people there would remain mobile longer due to Mars’ reduced surface gravity (about 38% of the gravity on Earth). Could this mean a later retirement age for Mars-based astronauts?”

The Moving to Mars show demonstrated that people have historically vacillated between seeing the planet in a romantic or menacing light. In ancient times, Mars, collection named after the ancient Roman god of war, was regarded by many as sinister; some believed it was a place our spirits departed to after we died. But this perception was dispelled by scientific discoveries made during the Age of Enlightenment. In the 18th century, when German- British astronomer William Herschel trained his telescope on Mars, he believed he detected seasons and seas.

In 1877, Schiaparelli observed a network of lines on Mars which he called “canali”, meaning naturally formed channels. Mistranslated as (artificial) canals, this gave rise to a belief in the existence of Martians, a term that appeared in print for the first time the same year. The idea gained wider credence thanks to US astronomer and mathematician Percival Lowell, who zealously promoted this theory.

Offsetting this rose-tinted view was HG Wells’ dystopian 1890s novel, The War of the Worlds, which imagines Martians invading Earth since resources on their planet were dwindling. By contrast, US writer Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of romantic adventure stories in the 1910s set on Mars, kicking off with Under the Moons of Mars. His superhero, John Carter, gained superior strength and agility from the lesser gravity on Mars and fell in love with a Martian princess.

In the space-age 1960s, technology made it possible for humans to observe the planet at close quarters: in 1964, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft undertook the first successful fly-by exploration, zapping the first close-up photographs back to Earth. In 1976, NASA’s two Viking space probes mapped vast tracts of the Martian surface, observing that floods once carved deep river valleys and charting weather patterns. But experiments to detect signs of living organisms in soil samples proved fruitless.

Yet conjecture about life on Mars thrilled many in the 1970s. David Bowie’s song Life on Mars from his 1971 album Hunky Dory yearningly asks: “Is there life on Mars?”, its sense of mystery accentuated by its surreal lyrics. The following year, Bowie adopted the persona of Ziggy Stardust – a fictional, androgynous rock star who acts as a messenger for extra-terrestrials, while his backing singers were called the Spiders from Mars.

Futuristic visions of Mars dreamt up in the past aren’t totally irrelevant today, argues Stephen James O’Meara. “It will be important for dwellings on Mars to be space-saving. Beds that automatically fold up like the ones in cartoon The Jetsons have a place there.” Otherwise, he sees Martian dwellings resembling “a pie chart”: “They would be sliced into offices, laboratories, tool sheds, rover garages.”

“Architects are also exploring greenhouse ideas, like biodomes [dome-shaped structures enclosing eco systems],” he adds. “Plants generate oxygen which helps scrub out high CO 2 levels on Mars. Interiors need to be soothing, pleasing to the eye. They need to cut out angles to minimise accidents and conserve precious medical supplies. And it will be important to take into account cultural differences on Mars – should there be minimalist Japanese rooms not just cluttered British interiors? Psychology is an important consideration, too: astronauts work as a team so hierarchical, rectangular tables should be avoided in favour of democratic, round, Arthurian ones.”