You’ve heard of living “off-grid”, but how about living “off-world”?
Many of us dream about a future in space; few of us actually plan for it. So when I came across Space Is More, I was amazed by what I found. Most of all, I was inspired to discover nuclear energy is the key to unlocking humanity’s colonisation of space. Read on to find out how.
Based in Poland, Space Is More exist to dream up how humans might flourish on other worlds. In fact, dreams are just the first step.
What makes Space Is More unique is that their inspiring concepts for a human presence on the Moon and Mars are based on real science and engineering.
Their team of architects, biologists, chemists and mechanical engineers design modules that, when connected together like Lego, will make it possible to build self-sustaining human colonies. What’s more, they create gorgeous concept art that shows what this would actually look like.
Taking off-grid to another level
Building “off-world” is like an extreme version of building “off-grid” on Earth. A long-term presence on another planet or moon means providing your own energy, water, food, oxygen and even building materials and manufactured goods.
There are lessons to be learnt from humanity’s first permanently-manned space mission: the International Space Station, or ISS. While the astronauts (and cosmonauts) living on the ISS can rely on semi-regular food and water deliveries, they must be self-sufficient in energy and recycle as much air and water as possible.
Surviving on Mars
One of Space Is More’s first successes was coming second place in the 2018 Marsception prize. The challenge was to envision a habitat for the first five colonizers on the Red Planet. The team took inspiration from the European Space Agency’s Melissa project, which investigates regenerative engineering techniques for long duration space missions.
The regular dust storms and extremely low temperatures of the Martian night mean Marsception could not survive on solar power alone. Instead, it would be powered by a small fission reactor, probably something like the NASA Kilopower plant. This is the next level up from the nuclear batteries powering NASA’s Mars rovers today.
Prototyping for the Moon and Mars
The next step for Space Is More came when they collaborated with the Centre of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Bremen, Germany, to create full-scale demonstrators of habitat modules that could be deployed on Mars or the Moon.
The project was led by ZARM’s Christiane Heineke and team, with Space Is More providing the visuals and research support. You can read about the project, known as MaMBA (Moon and Mars Base Analog), in their 2019 paper (pdf).
Occupy Mars
But despite all their other cool projects, it’s Space Is More’s 2019 submission to the Mars Colony prize that really blows you away. This was a competition organised by the Mars Society of London to design a self-sustaining colony for at least 1000 people.
The Space Is More concept was created in partnership with Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. The concept is named after Twardowsky, a mythical sorcerer from Polish folklore, and more than a little magic has gone into the design.
Recognising the huge step in scale from Marsception, the team put together a report covering site selection, engineering and architectural design. It shows how they selected a site based on the availability of local minerals and the amount of sunlight. They must have picked a good spot because it was only 1km away from where NASA’s Perserverance landed this February!
Much of the colony will be buried underground to protect it from radiation and the weather, and there will be a spaceport 5 km from the main site. A system of 6000 mirrors is designed to collect enough light for growing crops in vertical farms. The mirrors are also important to ensure the inhabitants are exposed to similar levels of sunlight as they would be on Earth — important for vitamin D levels and psychological well-being.
The Twardowsky inhabitants will be doing a lot of exploring and mining of minerals, so the colony will be provided with a large transport hub for the storing and servicing of Martian vehicles.
We’ve all seen footage of the cramped spaceships of today, so you may be surprised to see the airy residential zones, replete with gardens and recreational areas.
What’s powering all this?
It’s Twardowsky’s energy system that’s particularly impressive. The beating heart of the colony is a 100 MW, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, often pronounced “lifter”), a kind of advanced nuclear reactor that runs on molten salts. Given that it can’t meltdown and can run for 30 years without refurbishment, it would be perfect for a budding Mars colony.
With the turbine running on a CO2 Brayton cycle, the team predicts 100 kg of thorium mined from Martian soils would be enough to run the plant each year.
An added benefit of having a nuclear plant is that it doesn’t just produce electricity: it kicks out enough heat to ward off the harsh Martian night and could even be used to produce local medical isotopes for the colony’s clinic.
Recognising the need for resilience, the LFTR will be backed up by a decentralised array of 10 kW Kilopower reactors, designed to be able to run the life support systems if the LFTR goes offline.
Kilopower reactors are simple and require little to no maintenance, relying on the passive circulation of liquid metal in what are known as “heat pipes”. It’s what NASA intends to use on future extended missions to the Moon and Mars.
On top of that, hydrogen will be produced to power fuel cells and there will be a novel kind of solar array that can be rolled up and stored in case of dust storms.
I wonder what Elon thinks…
The president of the Mars Society went on to present a book of the winning concepts to space entrepreneur Elon Musk. The image on the front cover is the Twardowsky project.
For all we know, Elon is already designing his first colony based on the Space Is More design…
