213-JournalistReport

Journalist Report

02/13/2014

Tereza Pultarova

It's time to expand the base

The first crew on Mars would have the most difficult task - confined

into a tiny habitable structure

with minimal personal space and only the most necessary facilities,

they will live and work

similarly to analogue crews at the Mars Desert Research Station.

However, they won't remain in these

ascetic conditions for ever. They will expand the base - to prepare it

for those coming next and

also to get more personal comfort.

Crew 135 commander and extreme environments architect Ondrej Doule has

come up with a proposal to

upgrade the aging Mars Desert Research Station structure not only to

make it more cosy and crew-

friendly, but also to enter the next stage of Mars colonization.

"First, we had to understand how the base is constructed and what are

the structures," explains

Ondrej. "That took the biggest part of the design inclusive mapping

all the layers of the metal

structures which are quite complex. Based on this information I am

proposing several upgrades."

First of all, he believes, comes personal space of the crew members.

It's understandable - they will

spend months, perhaps years living at close quarters. Chances are they

would eventually start

getting on each other's nerves - hence the need of sufficient private space.

Instead of the existing parallel chambers with alternate lower and

upper bunks (where one risks

crashing his or her head with every not-well-thought-through

movement), Ondrej proposes a concentric

layout with the bedroom doors opening toward a small newly created

circular hall in the middle of

the upper deck leading into the slightly expanded work area.

"These rooms wouldn't be larger than the existing ones but they

wouldn't be so thin and long, there

would be more open space inside and you wouldn't be afraid that you

bang your head somewhere. It's

really only the simplicity of the geometry," says Ondrej. "Also those

rooms are equal in size, there

are no bigger rooms and smaller rooms, which is the case now and the

now smaller rooms would be

bigger with the new concept."

However, the optimal solution, according to Ondrej, would be a bit

more ambitious. Instead of six

rooms squeezed one next to each other, he proposes placing only four

astronauts' bedrooms into the

main station building and connecting this area through a bridge with

another cell outside.

"This structure is elevated so you can have an ATV parking below and a

water tank above so you are

utilizing basically the water gradient," says Ondrej. "Another very

important structure would be the

emergency escape vehicle that would probably have the same size as the

MDRS, only that it would be

accommodating lots of fuel and escape pods, space suit pods for the

entire crew and a MDRS control

center that is currently missing."

In the case of emergency - such as a sudden collapse of the station's

life-support systems or a

biological contamination, the astronauts could run from the main

station into the escape vehicle

through an emergency bridge, taking off from Mars, leaving the station behind.

With a bit of luck, such a scenario would never happen, however, it is

better to be safe than sorry.

Ondrej's proposal includes also a greenhouse ten-times the size of the

current green hab, providing

space to grow enough plants to cover most of the astronauts' nutritional needs.

Using natural terrain geomorphology in the vicinity of the station,

Ondrej proposes building a space

port behind a nearby hill connected to the base with an underground tunnel.