Construction on Mars

If humanity wants a self-sustaining colony on Mars, we must solve one interesting question.

How do we build on Mars?

To build something, you need two things:

(1) someone or something to do the building.

(2) materials/equipment to build with.

On Earth, we could call up our local construction crew for a project. Get an estimate. Purchase the materials. And, have a home built in a couple of months.

On Mars, construction gets more complicated.

For one, there is no “local” Martian construction crew. And, the Earth crews (if they wanted to take the trip) are quite far away.

The distance from Earth to Mars can be anywhere from 33.9 million miles (54.6 million km) to 250 million miles (401 million km) (NASA.gov).

For reference, that is the minimum length of 497,200,000 football fields.

To build on Mars, we would have to find a way to transport experienced builders across these great lengths - an estimated six month journey.

Adding more complications, construction crew will also need the second main part of the construction equation: the material and equipment to build. And, these can be heavy.

• According to WasteRemovalUSA, The average house weight can vary between 80,000 and 160,000 pounds, excluding foundation and contents.

• A small bulldozer can weigh up to 30,000 pounds (Source).

Moving construction materials to a build site on Earth is easy. You get a truck, some gas, load the cargo, drive to the site, and unload.

While moving materials from Earth to Mars follows the same concept, it has one additional problem, a very powerful, unforgiving force that we all know as gravity.

To carry large payloads off the planet, we need a tremendous amount of thrust.

We need rocket science.

Luckily, SpaceX and NASA have been hard at work on building bigger and better rockets.

Until we find a way to source materials from the red planet, spaceship payloads will likely be the main means of transportation for Mars construction materials.

Serving as our “delivery truck,” we could load the construction materials on SpaceX’s Starship or a similar load-bearing spaceship.

Since the spaceships can only carry so much, the construction material has to be less than the weight of the current-gen ships’s payload.

According to SpaceX, Starship is currently capable of hauling ~200 tons to Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) in an expendable configuration, making it the most capable rocket ever developed.

For future evolutions, SpaceX is reportedly working on Spaceship v.3, with specs of over 400 tons for the payload.

After shipping the construction crew, materials, and equipment 33.9 million miles, we could technically build an Earth-like structure.

We did it! Right?

Unfortunately, the problem isn’t solved just yet.

Humans are not very suited for the Martian climate.

Mars is extremely cold.

The common Martian temperature is -63 Celsius. To combat this, buildings will require large, powerful heaters. Otherwise, habitants will quickly get hypothermia.

The atmosphere is very harsh as well. It consists of 95% carbon dioxide. At large doses, this gas is poisonous for humans. Any building on Mars would require an electrolysis machine to produce oxygen.

Electrolysis is a process of running a DC current into an element, such as carbon dioxide, in order to break it down.

Fortunately, this has been proven to work by NASA rover, Perseverance.

The alternative would be shipping huge oxygen tanks. This would cost lots of weight. Or, an even crazier alternative would be terraforming (let’s put that to the side for now). This might cost some nukes and time…

The fact is humans need oxygen to live.

To power an electrolysis machine, the building would need a sustained power source.

I would guess the easiest energy source on Mars is likely the sun. While only receiving 43% of Earths’ solar irradiance, Mars still might be a suitable subject for solar power.

In addition to solar, fuel tanks could power the Mars energy grid. However, like shipping oxygen tanks, every lb of fuel tanks brought will have a heavy weight cost.

The energy problem is likely the most crucial one to solve for reliable Mars construction.

On Earth, we have always said humans need: food, water, shelter to live.

On Mars, it’s more like energy, energy, and energy. Then, air, air, and air. Then, food, water, and shelter after,

So far, in this Substack, we have primarily looked at how we could construct a single, livable building on Mars.

But, there is a bigger looming question.

How do we scale construction efforts on Mars?

It is unlikely that we can scale significantly by shipping construction materials every time we want to build something new.

Material sourcing, transportation, and construction will need to happen on the red planet’s surface.

But, without sustainable energy, most ideas in this area will end up impractical.

That brings us back to the crucial energy problem.

The Martian energy industry will have to be a precursor to the Martian construction industry.

So, how do YOU think we can bring energy to Mars?