WIRED Staff
Science

Slideshow: Builders in a Strange Land

The first settlers on Mars probably won't be dragging building materials to their new home, so people are planning to make buildings from what's already on the surface. By Mark Baard.
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Coffee and doughnuts, and a view, make it feel like home. As a robotic butler prepares breakfast, a lunar (or Martian) farmer watches a satellite broadcast on an imbedded screen. Outside the module, track-mounted agribots tend aeroponically grown vegetables. Illustrator Pat Rawlings, who has worked extensively for NASA, believes many ideas for lunar colonization are directly applicable to Mars.Courtesy of Pat Rawlings/The Mars Homestead Project

See related story: Builders in a Strange Land

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A brick building, made with Martian materials, could replace temporary housing, particularly landing modules, according to the Mars Homestead Project.

Courtesy of the Mars Homestead Project
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This image depicts one possible use of a valuable lunar (or Martian) resource: large, subsurface lava tubes. Due to the much lower gravity on the moon and Mars, these cavern-like spaces could be more than 6 times the size of terrestrial lava tubes. They could shelter inhabitants from harmful radiation, said space illustrator Pat Rawlings.

Courtesy of Pat Rawlings/NASA