The United Arab Emirates government has recently announced its intention to build a city on Mars in the next hundred years. The first step? Prototype city on Earth. This week, authorities launched a Mars Science Project, an attempt to build a "reliable and realistic model that simulates life on the surface of Mars."
People on Earth are constantly pretending to be Martians. Mars simulations in places like Hawaii and Utah have become so essential that IKEA recently sent its engineers to spend some time in one of those places and found inspiration for new furniture. But the UAE has bigger plans in mind: their 1.9 million square meter city will be an engineering ground for designing future martial building materials and construction techniques, simultaneously building laboratories that simulate various aspects of the Red Planet environment.
The state hopes to attract "the best scientific minds around the world," the statement said. There is no word on whether the city will eventually become home to durable residents, but the UAE plans to have a dedicated team that will live a year in the Mars simulation. They plan to develop a self-sufficiency process that will keep astronauts healthy and fed during a real mission to Mars. And as is always the case with long-term space travel research, lessons learned under these cruel conditions - limited access to water, intense temperature, isolation, and the like - could help develop useful agricultural and building strategies that can be introduced here on Earth .
The United Arab Emirates authorities have yet to publish a project hologram, but it is likely to take place faster than the project of the actual settlement on Mars scheduled for around 2117. We bring a few photos of the proposed design, created in collaboration with Archbishop Bjarke Ingels.
One of the biggest problems of a potential settlement will be the diet of people on Mars, and designers have to solve it before they start work. The scientific project of the city on Mars will use several methods of breeding that do not require resources that do not exist on Mars, popcorn water and natural nutrients. Waste and water recycling methods will also be tested to get the maximum out of the scarce resources of the system.
The city will be made of interconnected structures of the dome. UAE plans to test dome materials that can block the sun's radiation. Radiation is more potent on Mars than here on Earth, because the planet lacks an atmosphere that would protect it.
It seems that the dome city in UAE will have the ability to filter more or less Sunlight, perhaps in order to control the conditions so that the days here respond to the weather on Mars. Automatic rendering suggests that engineers are planning to make inflatable domes of transparette renewable plastic.
UAE plans to spend the Mars simulation for a year within the city walls. Various laboratories will support space flight research.
In addition to the lab, the city will also have a museum, printed in 3D by a local emirate sandbox - which is roughly similar to the most powerful material on Mars, that's for sure.
The museum will be in honor of "the greatest accomplishments of humanity in the universe," the statement said.
The museum will also have "educational areas that aim to stimulate the interest of young people for space, and inspire in them a passion for research and discovery."
The "City" will serve as a base for the operations of scientists and engineers working on a project of the right city. This rendering is a lobby with a prototype aspiration settlement on Mars that is displayed in the center.
Relax is not a non-serious aspect of space travel - it's important that astronauts maintain mental health, and that's hardly so far away from home. In addition to plans for an amphitheater that could supposedly be used for leisure as well as for education, newspapers also mention a pool - which fits into a large water recycling scheme. Whether it makes sense to carry that particular element to Mars is a completely different question.
