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This topic is inspired by a post by PhotonBytes, in early 2025.
The original post was about the possibility of creating a habitat below the surface of Mars where the atmosphere of Mars might measure .5 (1/2) bar.
If such a location were possible, then it would be possible to eliminate the pressure door that all other habitats are going to require.
Unfortunately, it appears that it may not be possible to build a structure that far below the surface, because the regolith at that depth experiences thousands of bars of pressure.
Never-the-less, the attraction of eliminating the pressure door inspired NewMars members to study the idea to see what might be involved.
it became clear that the habitat would need a constant supply of oxygen, because humans would consume oxygen, but also because oxygen would drift upward through the shaft open to the sky, because oxygen has a lighter molecular weight than CO2, of which the Mars atmosphere primarily consists.
The habitat would also need a steady supply of Nitrogen or Argon, because both of these are lighter than CO2 and would drift slowly upward through the sky opening.
That steady supply of gases would need to be supplied by machinery.
All habitats on Mars are going to need to be fitted with machinery to maintain the gas mixture at the correct levels, and that machinery must be able to operate without a rest for years at a time.
This topic is offered for NewMars members who might wish to think about the problem of designing, building, operating and maintaining machinery to support life away from Earth.
We (humans) already have some experience dealing with the challenges of supporting life away from Earth. The Russians, and later the Americans working with Russians and Europeans and others, have demonstrated the ability to create and sustain operations away from Earth. In recent times, the Chinese have demonstrated the same ability.
What all these systems have in common is the constant operation of machinery to sustain life in the orbiting habitats we have today. In future years, if all goes well, we will have fixed location habitats on the Moon, and later on Mars and other Solar System bodies.
This topic is available for NewMars members who might wish to provide links or text about the machinery that exists today, or that might be needed for outposts further from Earth than LEO.
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This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members over time.
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This forum includes several folks who are thinking about various aspects of life away from Earth. In the context of this topic, everyone must include life support machinery in their plans, and that machinery must operate without interruption for ever.
We on Earth are blessed with life support that operates without human intervention. Away from Earth, ** every ** life support facility will depend upon machinery that must be operated correctly and maintained perfectly, in order for human life to continue.
It is possible that as artificial intelligence advances, it will be able to assume some of the responsibility for life support maintenance, but that time is not now. For decades, unlike on Earth, humans will need to include support staff in their away-from-Earth ventures.
The ISS is an example of an away-from-Earth facility that is NOT self-sustaining. I'm not sure of the size of the work force that keeps everyone on the ISS healthy, but I do know that there are permanent facilities in Russia and the US where significant numbers of people are spending their working lives attending to the myriad details of sustained operation of the orbiting outpost.
That huge work force is not going to be available on Mars.
In another topic, we are beginning to collect information about how submarines are able to operate for months at a time without surfacing, and without input from the outside.
This topic is available for NewMars members who might like to add to a collection of links and text about how to set up a self-sustaining facility away from Earth.
Life Support covers most of the specializations of concern. Mobility and Communications might be considered separately.
Mental and emotional health of a human population is another category of concern, but it is necessarily secondary to Life Support.
The forum archive includes beginning discussion of how teams might be structured to perform exploration missions. So far I have seen lots of suggestions for human skill sets, but none that I have seen include maintenance or field replacement of systems that provide life support, mobility, communications or anything else.
It appears to me that the working assumption that everything on the ship that heads out from Earth is going to work perfectly for as long as it is needed.
Closer to home, we might consider the maintenance activity needed to keep the ISS going.
This topic is available for NewMars members who might wish to address the need for maintenance and replacement of equipment far from home.
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