Could it be that the first Martian house will be built from ice?
The Red Planet has an abundance of water ice, making the Mars Ice House – awarded first prize in the 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – a viable picture of future habitat on the planet.
The design competition sought entries for a 3D-printed habitat for deep space exploration, including NASA’s journey to Mars. Part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, the competition is designed to promote additive construction technology for sustainable housing on Earth and beyond.
Mars Ice House, designed by Clouds Architecture Office and Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch), is a sleek series of nested ice shells aiming to utilize Mars’ liquid water and low temperatures to erect a “multi-layered pressurized radiation shell of ice.”
The structure has an outer shell and interior domes as well as a “contemplative yard” pocket in between so astronauts can enjoy a “protected neutral zone.” A hydroponic garden inside the front yard provides food and oxygen to its residents.
The ice material allows natural light to seep into the structure while providing protection against solar and galactic radiation. The project website states that while scientists have looked at potential synthetic substitutes for sunlight, such artificial options “do not hold nearly the same circadian variance or ability to balance a crew’s mental and physical health” as does the experience of having the sun’s everyday cycles.
Everyone on the team, at one point or another, was a student in the Space Studio class at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, taught by the Mars Ice House project lead Michael Morris.
“We were pretty clear that we weren’t going to do a dome and we didn’t want to do something opaque,” said Ostap Rudakevych from Clouds, highlighting the house’s double-walled structure.
The sloping, triangular structure would be built by two robots: one to collect ice from underneath Mars’ regolith surface and another to deposit the ice into the structure. The robots are part of the team’s vision of an autonomous society – built without humans and marked by “large-scale settlements.”
The winning team will take home $25,000, while second-place Team Gamma, which showcased a habitat similar to a hobbit hole, will receive $15,000.
NASA received over 165 submissions and judged and displayed the top 30 entries at the World Maker Faire event in New York.
