Living inside a Martian lava tube

Overview

Martian lava tubes offer natural shielding from radiation and extreme temperature swings. This study explores how to build a habitable interior inside one.

Approach

We examined siting, structure, and interior organization for a habitat that uses the lava tube as its outer shell : balancing protection against light, orientation, and livability.

Outcome

A concept for turning natural Martian geology into a protective home.

Our role

Anastasia owned the design of the habitat from scratch: the outer and inner structures, the concept of operations, key equipment, the budget breakdown and project management for a high-fidelity Mars mission analog habitat, meant to sit inside an Icelandic lava tube used as a testing site for the Apollo 11 mission.

She investigated existing terrestrial analogs, developed a deployable analog habitat concept from what they taught, and presented the project at the Mars Society Convention in 2019.

Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, appointed Anastasia chief architect of the base planned in Iceland. The Mars Society is the organization whose 2001 conference gave Elon Musk the push toward Mars that led him to start SpaceX.

Context, from the archive

In 2019 the Mars Society's president Robert Zubrin approached Anastasia Prosina to join the effort of designing and building their third Mars analog habitat. The Mars Society runs analogs of possible future Mars habitation units in Mars-like environments; established stations include the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station and the Mars Desert Research Station. With the opening of its first Icelandic chapter, it planned to extend those missions there, exploring the lava tube Stefánshellir as a concept of extraterrestrial habitation.

For astronauts exploring the harsh environments and fluctuating temperatures of Mars, lava tubes could provide natural shelter from radiation, micrometeorite impacts and unstable temperatures.

The challenge. Design a Martian habitat with a reconfigurable, efficient interior that is mobile and can be easily placed inside a lava tube.

The concept

The inflatable habitat, 16 ft 4 in by 29 ft 5 in, would be placed inside the Stefánshellir lava cave. Roughly a mile long, it is one of the longest such caves in Iceland, the first known lava tube in the world and the longest known until the end of the nineteenth century.

The module carries life support, electrical, and waste and hygiene recycling systems. On arrival at the tube the outer panels of the cylindrical body are removed and an inflatable membrane creates the living space. A hidden transformable floor unfolds to 32 ft 8 in in diameter, giving a free zone for workplaces and rest areas arranged around an inner cylinder of pre-equipped sleeping areas on each level.

Three exits allow for later use as airlocks, docking with further habitats to create expansive settlements and imitating how expansion on Mars might actually happen.

Why Iceland

Testing space missions in extreme environments on Earth is a cost-effective way to train future astronauts and to show the public why human spaceflight matters. This habitat has a real chance of being used in extraterrestrial exploration because of its lightweight structure and stowability, which leaves more mass for supplies on the voyage.

Before that, it has to be tested, and the Icelandic landscape is among the best choices: its mineralogy and its lava tubes are close to what Mars offers.

Team. Daniil Iakovlev, Anastasia Prosina, Christa Maria Feucht. Client: the Mars Society, in collaboration with 4th Planet Logistics.