Mars colony plans

This blog is about my design of a Mars colony for 100 people. I think it will be too dangerous to wait for shipments from Earth for the things they need to survive (what is something goes wrong and a spaceship with something important does not arrive?!). So these are the things that the colonists will need to make on Mars for themselves.

The main colony has the Main Dome, where the oxygen is brought in from the mine (see below), housing domes, a nuclear power station, a satellite communication antenna, and a gardening station. To protect from sandstorms, a huge dome can go over the city whenever the weather satellites predict a storm.

In the gardening station, colonists grow plants, vegetables, and fruit. They use lamps instead of sunlight, because there is not enough of sunlight on Mars. They use water and nutrients to grow plants without soil. It is too expensive to bring mammals to Mars, because they consume too much water and oxygen. So the colonists grow insects as a source of protein. Crickets can multiply very fast, they do not need much water, and they eat plant waste. Larger insects can feed on them. Dead remains and poop can be used as fertilizer for plants.

Mining site has digging robots and drilling machines that are controlled by one programmer. The rocks are transported into the brick factory with a sucker that extracts oxygen from them. The rocks fall into the oven and are made into bricks and are shaped by mechanical arms. Bricks and oxygen are transported to the colony by a tube bridge.

Colony will also need transportation and scouts to explore the surface. My rover called “Life Hunter C14165” has a small nuclear power generator, with a supply of super-radioactive Lawrencium for fuel (Lr, 103) and sturdy caterpillar track wheels and legs to move easily on the rough terrain. In case it needs a repair or some other device in the field, it also has a 3D printer to print parts and repair bots that are programmed to fix it and follow commands.

There is no known life on Mars, but there might have been before, such as bacteria or something like that. NASA Mars Rover called Opportunity proved this. So the Life Hunter has the best fossil hunting equipment and a small lab for analysis on board as well. It can collect samples, analyze them and send the data to the base.