How would you accommodate 1 million people on Mars? How do they get there? What do they do there? How do you guarantee the basic needs, like food, housing, water and fresh air? Which of these questions is most important? These and many more problems have been addressed by the Mars society when they opened the Mars City State competition in February 2020. Teams were invited to submit their ideas, condensed on not more than 20 pages. Sustainable Offworld Network (SONet), a team comprising space engineers, architects, geologists, mining engineers, and specialists in life support, submitted one of the top10 – proposals.

This is the story of “Nüwa” – a city state comprising 5 individual cities spread between the equatorial regions of the Valles Marineris Canyon and the Abalos Mesa in the polar regions of Mars. Five locations instead of one are chosen to improve resilience, long term easy access to resources and to add mobility options to the citizens of Mars.

The cities we imagine are built on the walls of a rocky Martian cliff. Building inside rock has numerous advantages, as it provides structural integrity against pressure, thermal stability, and protection against harmful cosmic radiation from space. Humans are not wired to live underground, so openings to the wall shall provide natural illumination near any location within the inhabited areas. This also allows the city to grow in density, thus better maintaining social cohesion and a sense of identity. Manufacturing, industry, food and energy production shall be located either at the base (valley) or at the top of the cliff (mesa).

Instead of neighbourhoods, our city consists of blocks hosting habitation, workplaces, local services, and public & green spaces for about 4000 people each. Each block is composed of numerous interconnected cylinders of about 10m in diameter extending from the illuminated outside, to about 150m into the rock. The green spaces include parks in remembrance of our Earth origins, and others developing the Martian artistic culture and experimental plant life better adapted to the Martian environment. Building on Mars has the same challenges as building on Earth, plus a few more. Strict construction standards and safety protocols must be embedded in the design of the city volumes, including safe and specifically designed protocols such as safe-haven to gather the population in case of depressurisation or fire.

Among other things, the amount of mineral resources to be extracted (about 1300 tons per City Unit) seems quite daunting, but these numbers are quite comparable to the amount of material processed during the life-time of a person on Earth. Another feature is the realisation that a lot of polymers (aka plastics) are needed for modern constructions. On Mars, these polymers need Carbon from the CO₂ in the atmosphere, and Hydrogen from water; and dominate the water budget requirements of the city. So reduction on the dependency of plastics for construction would be greatly beneficial. Similarly, all the transformation, manufacturing, life support and food production industry consumes large amounts of energy (about 110 kW per citizen), which is about 10 times more than a citizen consumes on Earth per capita (about 11 kW). This is just a reflection of how much our planet is offering us for free. The amount of energy is closely related to the amount of work hours that a person should contribute. Assuming direct correlation, it would mean that the regular Martian should work 10 times harder than an Earthling, which is unrealistic. This is where artificial intelligence and industrial standardisation concepts must be incorporated at design level. That is, rather than putting robots to operate in a human layout, the working places (e.g. farming domes) should be designed to be dwelled and operated by machines only.

Overall, we find that there are no physical or social barriers for the development of human communities outside Earth, at least on Mars. In addition to reformulating our constructive and lifestyle practices (e.g. design closed material cycles, reduce the reliance of bulk plastics, improve energy collection and efficiency of solar and nuclear sources, etc.), development of automation and artificial intelligence methods are needed to meet the growth targets. These are the same challenges that we face today in our own world so, at the end of the day, achieving self sustainable human communities beyond Earth will also provide solutions to the most pressing problems of our planet.

WELCOME TO NÜWA!

Further information & contact

• www.sonet-hub.com
• Twitter: @SONet_hub
• Mars City State Contest

Author & Contact: Philipp Hartlieb