June 5, 2007

Mars Garden Wins Gold at London’s Chelsea Flower Show

Imagine. You have established the first human settlement on Mars. All the essential features of the hab have been designed and built. You have organized the sleeping quarters so you and your team are able to rest in privacy. You have successfully tapped into a source of water. Mechanized processes are in motion, you hear the hum of robots creating masonry, cutting plastics and extracting chemicals from piles of Martian soil. Supplies are plentiful since the arrival of cargo the day before. Everything is great. Everything is going according to plan.

But, inside the hab, the smell of iron and sulfur on your hands, surrounded by plastic and aluminum, a deep feeling of homesickness and disorientation is distracting you from this historic achievement…

The human need for familiarity and aesthetic pleasures will be amplified for the first explorers of Mars, lack of which may cause depression, mental anxiety and physical stress. Primarily, this will cause problems for mission operations, but on a deeper level, rooted insecurities may cause irreversible damage to the embryonic Mars community.

At a time when basic human needs are being researched by the Mars Homestead Project™, a design of a Martian garden won gold at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in London last week. The annual event, organized by the UK's Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), is attended by the best designers, gardeners and specialists worldwide, so this award is especially significant for future manned exploration of the Red Planet. The designer, Sarah Eberle, created her garden ("600 Days with Bradstone" – named after the hypothetical 600 days of an astronaut’s first mission to Mars and the sponsor, Bradstone) with the "psychological importance of man’s relationship with his environment" in mind.

"We had to make many assumptions, but everything in the garden is based on real science."
– Sarah Eberle

The designer and her team researched the science behind future manned settlements on Mars and drew up a list of important characteristics a Martian garden must have. The team liaised with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the British Science Museum for eight years to arrive at a garden that could be worked into the design of Mars habitats considering the psychological effects of spending long periods in space. Assuming a domed structure, the garden features plants that will be familiar to the settlers to give them a “sense of home” and uses rocks similar to those that could be excavated on Mars.

"You have to consider colour, water and plant longevity. Also, how would someone feel for 600 days in space? I thought the feeling of seeing something growing would be most important."
- Sarah Eberle

Besides creating a refuge for the men and women in the Mars settlement, the garden may be used to cultivate food and provide water, all adding to the sense of well-being the settlers will need. In the long-term, life support systems will need to be supplemented or superseded by natural sources, therefore gardens such as this will be a vital addition to any hab to produce oxygen and other essential substances for use in medicines and construction (see Bamboo and plastic bench concept). The RHS award site states: "Planting has been chosen based on research that suggests the varieties could be grown on Mars; plants include, coffee, wheat and olive oil for diet and opium, poppy and aloha for medicinal needs." Luxuries such as chocolate may be synthesised by growing carob. Calendula - for color, nutrition and medicine - may also be produced.

An interesting addition is the water geyser in the center of the garden. Based on an Alaskan model, permafrost below the Mars garden will be gently heated, producing an up flow of liquid water. A fine mist will add to the scene and the up flowing water can be fed through a system of pipes, irrigating the garden. An aesthetically pleasing and practical feature.

"It brings it all home why I go through this torture and pain, for such a sweet moment as this, I tell my daughters never to stop dreaming, because sometimes your dreams really do come true." – Sarah Eberle

Imagine. After a grueling day hiking over the alien landscape, maintaining mankind’s presence on Mars, you return to your hab exhausted. You enjoy a hot meal prepared from fresh vegetables and herbs. You make your way into the garden to relax and chat about the day’s events with your team, listening to splashing water and smelling the terrestrial flowers coming into bloom…

For more information on this achievement:

• Sarah's Space Log
• "600 Days with Bradstone" garden information
• "600 Days with Bradstone" project site
• ESA project site

June 1, 2007

The Phoenix Mars Mission

A top priority of future manned missions to Mars will be to find a source of water. In the case of Mars, ice is obvious on the surface in the southern polar cap, but does water exist elsewhere below the seemingly barren red soil where future settlements will be located?

The use of water extends far beyond the obvious human need to drink. Water is also essential for fuel, air, food, plant growth (hydroponics), a source of H₂ for polymer/plastic fabrication, industrial process, domestic living (i.e. washing, cleaning) and esthetics in permanent hab in any future settlement that will rely on local acquisition of materials and supplies.

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have launched an armada of highly successful missions to hunt for Martian water and ice. From the detailed mapping of polar ice in the south pole by ESA's Mars Express mission (pictured above) to the discovery of the possibility of liquid water sporadically flowing on the surface by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission (pictured below), there appears to be remote observations of the existence of present-day sub-surface water.

However, direct measurements need to be taken to assess the location and quantity of water ice, so future human settlements can benefit. The Phoenix Mars Lander is one such mission with the aim to find past evidence of surface water and to prospect for today's reserves by correlating orbital data with direct measurements.

As NASA's first "Mars Scout Class" lander, the Phoenix mission is designed to gather data specifically for future manned missions of the Red Planet. It is due for launch August 2007 and has two bold mission objectives:

"1) Study the history of water in the Martian arctic and 2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary." - Mission site

A primary goal of the mission will be to understand the soil chemistry. These data will be a critical resource to future human explorers and will give information on how water may be acquired from the planet. Also, an understanding of soil and the permafrost layers will be critical to the design of permanent structures and habitation foundations.

The Mars Foundation™ will be watching this mission closely, in the hope of enhancing our established Hillside Settlement and new Mars Plains Settlement blueprints. With improved knowledge of the Martian landscape comes improved designs of advanced habitats, the Phoenix will hopefully start to pave the way to human exploration of Mars.

Further reading:

• The University of Arizona mission site.
• Phoenix Robotic Arm (RA) instrumentation and experiment objectives (table)
• The JPL mission site.
• Lockheed Martin news item on Phoenix.
• Article - Some implications on the colonization of Mars

Posted by Ian O'Neill on 1:42 AM | Comments (0) | Archive Link