(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) An "inner solar system Walmart" This image was taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on April 3, 2016.
Taming a resource-rich Mars can assure that future inhabitants live long and prosper. "Mars is different from Earth … time is our friend," Bushnell said. Such work can begin on Mars before any humans get there, thanks to autonomous robots, Bushnell said.īy exploiting all Martian resources, he added, small initial payloads of stuff can eventually produce major effects, products and functionalities. "Plastic equipment, parts, structural members, buggies, habs, pipes, etc., can be heavy and large to make up for lack of materials properties excellence." "What is produced can be oversized as required for whatever strength is required," he said. "These technologies, combined with the vast natural resources, should enable serious, pre- and post-human arrival ISRU to greatly increase reliability and safety and reduce cost for human colonization of Mars," the technical paper explains.įor example, plastics can be produced from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen processed from Martian water and the planet's atmosphere, according to Bushnell, the chief scientist at NASA Langley.īushnell told that plastics will likely be designed crudely on Mars, except where they absolutely have to be finished. Technologies on and off Mars are part of a toolkit to cultivate independence of residents on Mars from Earth. The report suggests that NASA should match up ISRU with frontier technologies, including robotics, machine intelligence, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, 3D printing and autonomy. "Until we demonstrate that we can do that reliably on Mars using resources there, then there's no compelling foundation for extensive ISRU and pioneering there," he said. NASA has followed a strategy of " follow the water" for space exploration, Moses said.īut with respect to pioneering Mars, and defining some potential ISRU missions, the space agency should seek to "bottle the water," Moses said. "If the best that we can hope for is to get Matt Damon back to Earth alive, then we may have failed miserably in our pursuit of pioneering Mars and achieving Earth Independence," Moses said.Įxtensive ISRU application may offer a solution that allows the Mars pioneers to come back to Earth when and if they want to, he said - "not because they have to." Moses, who's based at Langley's Atmospheric Flight & Entry Systems Branch, told that the duo's ISRU-heavy plan strives to achieve Earth-independent pioneering of Mars. One small step toward Mars colonization? Living off the Red Planet via in-situ resource utilization is key to sustained settlement on Mars, a NASA report suggests.
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