With NASA’s Mars exploration missions entering their next exciting stage, the researchers at the space agency have been faced with a huge number of practical challenges that need to be overcome to ensure the success of the mission.

NASA plan to put igloos on Mars

With NASA’s Mars exploration missions entering their next exciting stage, the researchers at the space agency have been faced with a huge number of practical challenges that need to be overcome to ensure the success of the mission. One of the most important problems is where the astronauts are going to live when they set foot on the red planet. Now it appears that NASA scientists have come up with an incredibly promising solution – they call it the ‘ice home’.

The Mars Ice Home has been envisaged as an inflatable, inner tube-like device that will be covered in an incredibly dense sheet of protective ice. It is imagined that it will look like this.

While researchers concede that this igloo-like buildings might seem a little crazy and ‘out of the box’ they are certainly considering using the design. “The Mars Ice Home design has several advantages that make it an appealing concept. It is lightweight and can be transported and deployed with simple robotics, then filled with water before the crew arrives.” This is considered a huge benefit of the design. Previous ideas had involved sending heavy construction robots to tunnel a habitat underground, but this notion was unpopular among the team at NASA because of the expense and complexity of the operation that would be involved.

The primary benefit of the Mars Ice Home would be that it would sufficiently protect the astronauts from high-energy radiation such as cosmic rays which often penetrate the atmosphere on Mars. Research Sheila Ann Thibeault says that the thick ice that they plan to lay across the inflatable structure will be sufficient to protection the astronauts from this kind of toxic radiation. “The materials that make up the Ice Home will have to withstand many years of use in the harsh Martian environment, including ultraviolet radiation, charged-particle radiation, possibly some atomic oxygen, perchlorates, as well as dust storms, ” she said.

One of the most important problems is where the astronauts are going to live when they set foot on the red planet. Now it appears that NASA scientists have come up with an incredibly promising solution – they call it the ‘ice home’.

The Mars Ice Home has been envisaged as an inflatable, inner tube-like device that will be covered in an incredibly dense sheet of protective ice. It is imagined that it will look like this.

While researchers concede that this igloo-like buildings might seem a little crazy and ‘out of the box’ they are certainly considering using the design. “The Mars Ice Home design has several advantages that make it an appealing concept. It is lightweight and can be transported and deployed with simple robotics, then filled with water before the crew arrives.” This is considered a huge benefit of the design. Previous ideas had involved sending heavy construction robots to tunnel a habitat underground, but this notion was unpopular among the team at NASA because of the expense and complexity of the operation that would be involved.

The primary benefit of the Mars Ice Home would be that it would sufficiently protect the astronauts from high-energy radiation such as cosmic rays which often penetrate the atmosphere on Mars. Research Sheila Ann Thibeault says that the thick ice that they plan to lay across the inflatable structure will be sufficient to protection the astronauts from this kind of toxic radiation. “The materials that make up the Ice Home will have to withstand many years of use in the harsh Martian environment, including ultraviolet radiation, charged-particle radiation, possibly some atomic oxygen, perchlorates, as well as dust storms, ” she said.

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