How to Build for Human Life on Mars | Melodie Yashar | TED

Let's imagine together we've gone on an eight-month journey

and arrived to the planet Mars.

Yes, Mars.

Somehow we'll have to figure out

how to build protective and durable structures

to shield us against solar radiation,

galactic cosmic rays and extreme temperatures swings.

On a Mars mission, there's only so much that we can bring with us from Earth.

And it's prohibitively expensive

to launch tons and tons of construction materials into space.

So to realize a pioneering habitat

that progressively grows,

adapts and expands into a permanent outpost,

we have to think differently about how we build.

These habitats and the robots that build them

will enable humanity to thrive off-world.

I am a space architect.

I design and conceive habitats supporting human exploration in deep space,

like on the surface of Mars.

Not only do I design spaces for optimal crew health and performance,

but I also investigate what these habitats are

and how they're going to be built.

Now, Mars is so far from us

that communications delays can take up to 22 minutes

one way to or from Earth.

And what that means is that we can't rely on real-time telerobotics

controlled by people on Earth

to supervise what happens in construction on Mars

or for that matter, to supervise anything that happens

when we're exploring the planet.

But if we leverage autonomous robotics,

we'll send 3D printers and other construction robots

to build protective habitats and shelters

before the crew even arrives.

So how exactly would 3D printers build a habitat on Mars?

Well, first we have to figure out what these structures are made out of.

Just like early civilizations, will use in situ regolith,

commonly known as dirt,

and other resources that are local and indigenous to the planet,

including water,

and possibly combine them with additives and binders

that we bring from Earth

to engineer high-performance construction materials.

Our goal when we're designing these habitats

is to introduce an airtight structure

that can withstand internal pressurization,

which is what will allow people to live

in a breathable and temperate environment on the inside.

The robots that we deploy on Mars

will need to perceive and interpret the complexity of a construction site

in order to sequence and choreograph different types of tasks.

These tasks will include prospecting Mars and surveying for a site to build,

collecting raw materials,

processing those materials and maneuvering them around.

Some of these bots might resemble the character Wall-E,

except, you know, not so cute.

Once the site has been excavated and foundations are printed,

these structures are manufactured layer by layer by layer.

And as construction progresses,

prebuilt and preintegrated hardware

like airlocks or life support equipment brought from Earth

are inserted into the print

until finally they're sealed at various connection points.

To do more than just survive in space,

we need to create environments that positively contribute to well-being

for months and years into the future.

And as more civilian astronauts travel to space,

it's important that our environments

are more than the tightly packed mechanical interiors

of the International Space Station,

which today represents the state of the art

for long-duration human life in space.

We also want to incorporate practical architectural elements

such as access to natural light through windows and greenery.

These were features that were missing aboard the space station

when it was first commissioned,

but which we know are critical to positive psychological functioning

and well-being.

For long duration missions in deep space,

it's important that crew members feel less like they're living in a machine

and more like they're living in a home.

There are other ways of approaching habitat construction on Mars.

Hard-shell or inflatable structures

may not provide the radiation protection that we need,

and living underground in lava tubes

doesn't quite support direct surface exploration on the planet.

And also, why would you travel for eight months to live underground?

Designing structures in space is all about mitigating risks

and the habitats that we create will need to be the most durable

and the most resilient structures ever conceived.

Future off-world surface habitats

will be self-regulating and self-maintained structures

to support the crew members while they're there,

but also to operate autonomously when they are not.

Before we send anyone to Mars,

we need data to answer some very key questions

about human health, safety,

and to validate each of these construction activities.

Fortunately for us, we have a testbed and a proving ground

much, much closer to Earth.

That's our own Moon.

Today we're working with NASA

to demonstrate how we'll 3D-print infrastructure

like landing pads, roadways and eventually habitats

directly on the lunar surface.

The Moon is a critical pit stop to refuel, resupply

and serve as a general platform for vehicles traveling to deep space,

and we'll use the technologies establishing a permanent human presence

on the Moon to travel to, from and operate on the surface of Mars.

What else are we doing to advance the viability of 3D printing

for building in space?

Well, for one thing,

we can demonstrate that 3D-printed structures

can support people in a mission-like environment

right here on Earth,

and use data from those experiments to set standards and requirements

for future Mars missions.

This is what we did in designing and building Mars Dune Alpha,

a 3D-printed analog habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston,

referred to as the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog --

that's a really long name, I know --

this structure will house four volunteer crew members

simulating a one-year mission to Mars,

including a 20-minute communications delay.

The first mission is kicking off later this year,

but you could actually apply to be a crew member in this habitat

sometime in the future.

Or if you're not so inclined,

you can suggest it to someone else in the name of research.

(Laughter)

If you're one of the chosen few,

you'll be sharing 1700 square feet of living and working areas

with three others, and that includes an aeroponic garden for plant growth,

a communications area, an exercise room,

as well as individual crew cabins that are very cozy,

just six by 12 feet.

Some of you may be thinking,

"Well, building in space,

this is a topic pretty far removed from our day-to-day lives.

How might it impact what we do on Earth today?

In my experience, designing for an extreme environment

that is the most restrictive and that presents the most constraints,

and which literally no human has ever gone before,

is what gives us the best chances of creatively engineering solutions

to problems here on Earth

that seem completely beyond our grasp today.

Problems like housing solutions for the chronically homeless

or hurricane and disaster relief housing.

Or rethinking sustainable practices within construction overall,

which, according to the UN,

is responsible for up to 30 percent of carbon emissions worldwide.

The autonomous technologies that we develop for building in space

redound to us on Earth.

They feed back and pay dividends to how we reimagine

and reconceive construction happening today.

The fact of the matter is that the most habitable planet

is the one we live on right now.

I don't like treating space like it's a lifeboat for humanity

from an ailing planet Earth.

We can either solve for how to build smarter and more sustainably today,

or we'll have to think about designing for survival on an Earth more extreme

and more foreign than any of us have ever known.

And this to me cannot be the primary reason or driver

why we explore and venture into deep space.

It's been over 50 years

since any human has traveled outside of Earth's orbit.

Things are about to change.

We will develop a permanent Moon base, and we will build autonomously on Mars.

We are on the cusp of seeing radical transformation

and how we build on Earth and how we push past limits

to a new frontier of human exploration in space.

Thank you so much.

(Applause)