Mars

Mars weather

^{Dust storm over Tempe Terra, seen by Mars Express' HRSC during a pass on June 17, 2011.}

Ten things you did not know about Mars: 3. Weather reports

Background

Zubrin, Robert. Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1999.

McMahon, Sean. “The Aesthetic Objection to Terraforming Mars.” In The Ethics of Space Exploration, edited by James S. J. Schwartz and Tony Milligan. New York: Springer, 2016.

Seedhouse, Erik. Survival and Sacrifice in Mars Exploration. Cham: Springer, 2015.

Musk, Elon. “Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species.” New Space 5, no. 2 (2017): 46–61. https://doi.org/10/ggsrft.

Musk, Elon. “Making Life Multi-Planetary.” New Space 6, no. 1 (2018): 2–11. https://doi.org/10/ggsrfv.

Jeevendrampillai, David, and Aaron Parkhurst. “Making A Martian Home: Finding Humans On Mars Through Utopian Architecture.” The Journal of Architecture, Design and Domestic Space 18, no. 1 (2021): 25–46. https://doi.org/10/gqj696.

Shishko, Robert, René Fradet, Sydney Do, Serkan Saydam, Carlos Tapia-Cortez, Andrew G. Dempster, and Jeff Coulton. “Mars Colony in situ Resource Utilization: An Integrated Architecture and Economics Model.” Acta Astronautica, The Fifth International Conference on Tethers in Space, 138 (2017): 53–67. https://doi.org/10/gbt64c.

Organizations

The Mars Society, it has an Australian chapter

The Association of Mars Explorers (mars-club.org)

Association of Mars Explorers | Facebook

The Planetary Society

Designers

Space Exploration Architecture

Projects

The Wilding of Mars on Vimeo. There is a chapter about this project here:

Harriss, Harriet, and Naomi House, eds. Working at the Intersection: Architecture after the Anthropocene. Milton: RIBA Publications, 2022.

The Marscape Project by Sanna Sarkama - Issuu

Terraforming

More on Terraforming

It is possible to terraform Mars, or so some strongly argue.
Different degrees of modification are possible, some are much harder.
It is likely that many or most of the required resources are available on Mars. The extraction methods are not clear, however.
The more difficult question is who will Mars be terraformed for?

"The problem of terraforming Mars is not so much one of mechanics, but upon deciding what kind of Mars is envisioned at the end of the process, and for who Mars is being terraformed for. The idea of simply homesteading Mars (like the old wild west) and allowing unfettered, laissez-faire resource extraction are entirely unrealistic (if not entirely obnoxious given the great ruin that such expansionism and free-industrial exploitation have precipitated on Earth, and the idea of fully terraforming Mars, to enable the free-movement of humans upon its surface, under conditions similar to that of Earth, is as equally unrealistic. What is needed is a better, workable vision of terraforming. Mars cannot be turned into an Earth Mark II on any timescale that bears commonality to past human endeavor..."

Beech, Martin. “Terraforming Mars: A Cabinet of Curiosities.” In Terraforming Mars, edited by Martin Beech, Joseph Seckbach, and Richard Gordon, 417–65. Hoboken: Wiley-Scrivener, 2022.

Pulsiri, Nonthapat, Damani Proctor, Richard B. Cathcart, and Jorge Omar Buteler. ‘Mars Terraforming: A New Plan for the Red Planet’. In 2022 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 1–5. Portland: IEEE, 2022. https://doi.org/10/grcndd.

Plants on Mars

Growing Plants in Space | NASA

plants grown in space | astrobotany.com

Plants in Space - The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (nsw.gov.au)

Wamelink, G. W. Wieger, Joep Y. Frissel, Wilfred H. J. Krijnen, M. Rinie Verwoert, and Paul W. Goedhart. “Can Plants Grow on Mars and the Moon: A Growth Experiment on Mars and Moon Soil Simulants.” PLOS ONE 9, no. 8 (2014): e103138. https://doi.org/10/xp3.

Cannon, Kevin M., and Daniel T. Britt. “Feeding One Million People on Mars.” New Space 7, no. 4 (2019): 245–54. https://doi.org/10/gqj7q2.

Llorente, Briardo, Thomas C. Williams, and Hugh D. Goold. “The Multiplanetary Future of Plant Synthetic Biology.” Genes 9, no. 7 (2018): 348. https://doi.org/10/gfkhq2.

Certini, Giacomo, Suniti Karunatillake, Yu-Yan Sara Zhao, Pierre-Yves Meslin, Agnes Cousin, Donald R. Hood, and Riccardo Scalenghe. “Disambiguating the Soils of Mars.” Planetary and Space Science 186 (2020): 104922. https://doi.org/10/gqj7q8.

Plant Cultivation

Wamelink, G. W. Wieger, Joep Y. Frissel, Wilfred H. J. Krijnen, and M. Rinie Vervoert. “Crop Growth and Viability of Seeds on Mars and Moon Soil Simulants.” In Terraforming Mars, edited by Martin Beech, Joseph Seckbach, and Richard Gordon, 313–30. Hoboken: Wiley-Scrivener, 2022.

Growth on regolith should be possible.

Issues:

No regolith on Earth for experiments
No nitrogen for fertilisation. Possible solution: bring Rhizobium bacteria from the earth, grow legumes, maybe free living cyanobacteria
Regolith is hydrophobic. Use worms
No phosphate. Use human faeces. Use fungi to obtain it from the soil
Pollination. Bring insects such as bumblebees. Or use robotic bees.

What are the ethical implication of controlling cultivation of plants on Mars? What are the parallels to the situations on the Earth? Patented crops with matching fertilisers and insecticides. Industrial pollinations. What are the dangers of these approaches? Parasites, disease, low resilience to change.

Controlled food is researched but not spontaneous and self-sustaining landscapes that will likely be necessary if one chooses to pursue terraforming. Are they possible? How? What are the analogues places on Earth? Damaged landscapes? Urban or industrial places? Indoor environments? What are the evolutionary dynamics in such places?

Dunn, Rob R. A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us About the Destiny of the Human Species. New York: Basic Books, 2021.

Dunn, Rob R. Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

Food on Mars

Newman, Lenore, and Evan D. G. Fraser. Dinner on Mars: The Technologies That Will Feed the Red Planet and Transform Agriculture on Earth. Toronto: ECW Press, 2022.

Settlement and Colonisation

Salotti, Jean-Marc. ‘Minimum Number of Settlers for Survival on Another Planet’. Scientific Reports 10, no. 1 (2020): 9700. https://doi.org/10/gq986k.