Red Planet Report

Living off the land is different when the land is 140 million miles away, so NASA is looking for innovative ideas to use in situ (in place) Martian resources to help establish a human presence on the Red Planet.

The In Situ Resource Utilization Challenge offers the public an opportunity to submit designs for structures on Mars that would use existing material. The agency plans to award $10,000 to the first-place winner, with $2,500 each for two second-place submissions. (…)

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeks proposals for systems that will convert in situ materials into interlocking structural elements for construction that can support exploration on a planet. NASA’s focus is to support extra-terrestrial exploration on the Moon or on Mars, but the technology could also be useful on Earth. (…)

Transforming in situ materials such as regolith or basalt into useful structural elements is a significant way to reduce the mass of materials launched as payload from Earth.  Considering exploration on Mars, for every kilogram of native materials used, one saves 11 kg of transportation propellant and spacecraft mass required to launch to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).  Given the cost for LEO is US$10,000/kg, one avoids at least US$110,000/kg of cost by using 1 kg of in situ materials, making space pioneering on Mars more affordable and feasible… [More at link]