Over past few days, we trained AI to understand Mareekh Dynamics' concepts for the engineering solutions for human habitation on Mars. We asked it complex abstractions relating our technologies and prompted it to look up and search for answers on our website. Eventually we were able to ask it to draw what it thinks of the specific ideas of human habitation solutions on Mars, from current technologies to our innovations, and draw it in the form of artwork. AI has done a wonderful job and created imagery of its understanding of our concepts.
This artwork is in no way aimed at accurately depicting our technologies, as there are several deviations in it from our patented concepts and technologies. Nonetheless, AI has done an amazing job incorporating our concepts into visual depictions of what humans may achieve on Mars, and how it may be like living on the red planet.
This is the story of human endeavour to Mars as told by the Artificial Intelligence, based on its understanding of the Craterhab Technology of Mareekh Dynamics.
The Vision
A young teenager on Earth with a vision for humanity's destiny as a multi-planetary specie.
Leaving Earth
AI's rendering of large rocket ships such as SpaceX's Starship leaving Earth for a new destination to Mars.
Approach and Landing
A spaceship with an orbiter and lander module enters Martian orbit.
The lander separates from the orbiter which now serves as a orbital relay station to Earth.
The crewed lander touches down on the dusty surface of Mars.
An early morning alien landscape greets a well-trained astronaut doing final instrument checks before humanity's next giant leap; her first step on Mars.
AI rendering of the very first group of astronauts on Mars.
The earliest astronauts on Mars will be a mix of very young settlers and more experienced senior astronauts from different nations. They will live in miniature versions of Craterhabs which can be built relatively easily and will provide spacious internal living spaces for the crew who will call these habitats their home for the next several months. As more and more starships arrive on Mars bringing more astronauts, engineers, machinery and equipment from Earth, the stage will be set for large-scale construction of habitation structures such as Craterhabs for permanent human settlement on Mars.
More rocket ships arrive bringing astronauts, supplies and equipment
A pair of landers roar through the thin atmosphere and break the pre-dawn silence on the red planet.
Larger spacecrafts bringing heavier equipment and supplies will expedite the development of a Martian colony. In this AI rendering, the landing legs have auxiliary retro rocket motors to carefully balance and stabilize the landing in a low gravity environment.
The Craterhabs
The next step will be to construct very large habitable volumes of internal living space with near-Earth atmospheric pressure and temperature, incorporating all the amenities of daily living, where humans can comfortably live without the confines of space suits, in a shirt-sleeve environment for prolonged periods of time. One of such structures can be our patented Craterhabs which are domes of ultra-strong fabric consisting of a hexagonal skeletal framework of Dyneema cables and hexagonal segments of Silicone-Kevlar composite material. The Craterhabs will be built over small Martian craters, anywhere from 50m to 500m in diameter initially, and then extrapolated to over a kilometer in diameter. The Craterhabs are composite-fabric domes in the shape of hemi-ellipsoid, built directly above the craters with their peripheries connected through a concrete sandwich wall to the underground concrete anchors. Craterhab design offers the smallest material-to-volume ratio, utilizing the natural depth of craters as extra volume of space for the same amount of construction material, and the ease of construction using a single pivot and arm construction crane mounted in the centre of the crater.
Preparing a small meteorite crater on the Martian surface for the construction of the earliest Craterhabs, using a central pivot and arm construction crane.
Much heavier cranes may be needed to construct larger Craterhabs over bigger craters.
A concrete sandwich wall is constructed within the crater rim to secure connection of the Craterhab skeletal framework to the underground radical concrete anchor system.
The sandwich walls can be customized as per the need and the crater topography.
A mining crater may have a multipurpose mining crane to construct the Craterhab before mining operations. The crane and equipment is deployed, and the Craterhab is then constructed on top of the crater for the workers to work comfortably inside.
A completed Craterhab as imagined by AI, featuring its hexagonal skeletal frame. The AI rendered image is not entirely accurate as per our design specifications but it is still fairly close, and captures the main idea and helps imagine what a Craterhab will actually look like. The semi-transparent Silicone-Kevlar composite in the main body of the Craterhab will stop most of the UV rays from the Sun from entering, but allow enough visible and infrared light to create an ambient environment inside the Craterhab. The hexagonal skeletal framework of the Craterhab will also incorporate our patented powered radiation shield called Active Integrated Radiation Shield (AIRS). AIRS will protect the inhabitants of the Craterhab from dangerous solar wind utilizing non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation from direct current passing through the hexagonal skeletal frame.
Several Craterhabs are constructed in small craters of different sizes. Locations on Mars with clusters of small craters can be chosen to achieve proximity of Craterhabs with each other which will be connected through surface and underground tunnels and hyperloop system. The external access will be through airlocks for astronauts to visit the outside environment wearing pressurized space-suits especially designed for the Martian environment.
Another example of a small cluster of Craterhabs
Over time, larger and larger Craterhabs will be constructed to create entire cities on Mars.
A misty morning with frost greets a small colony of Craterhabs.
The next task for the humans on Mars will be to develop the interior of the Craterhabs to create a liveable internal space. This will include filling the interior of the Craterhab with a mixture of Nitrogen and Oxygen with a trace of CO2 to match the composition and pressure as close to the Earth's atmosphere as possible, and to modify and cure the soil on the crater floor to make Craterhab safe for humans to live without space suits inside the Craterhabs.
Walking into a Craterhab from an airlock during an early stage of its development. The crater floor has a lot of dirt. The workers live in these tents inside the Craterhab. The AI has rendered the perfect ambience what it is going to be like inside a Craterhab. The AI unfortunately could not draw the internal biradial cable system from roof to the craterfloor as per our patented design specification despite our several attempts, so we decided to go without it.
Further development of the Craterhab interior. Testing some plant growth in controlled boxes with a mixture of treated Martian regolith and imported fertilizer. Modified bacterial colonies may also be used to detoxify perchlorates in Martian soil to release oxygen and convert it into minerals necessary for plant growth.
The main aim of Craterhabs is to create micro-terraformed environments for humans to live permanently on Mars in an environment as closely resembling the Earth as possible.
Successful achievement of micro-terraforming inside a Craterhab
Successful creation of a garden landscape. Plants carefully chosen that grow under thick forest canopies in high altitude and latitude boreal forests under low light and low pressure conditions (the internal pressure of a Craterhab will be maintained nearly 0.6 bar, corresponding to 3500 - 4000m altitude on Earth.)
One thing leading to another. Humans can finally come out of the cramped pods and live in beautifully micro-terraformed Craterhabs as Earthlike as they possibly can. A utopian future of humanity for those who dared to go beyond and explore new horizons.
AI imagines a marketplace inside a small Craterhab in the early days of human settlement on Mars
Further expansion of the Craterhabs by converting larger and larger craters into habitable space through micro-terraforming using Craterhab technology
A small Craterhab with a miniature colony in a layout of a rural setting
Another marketplace inside a Craterhab. AI really wants marketplaces on Mars, so be it.
Another residential Craterhab with residential pods
A residential Craterhab with multi-storey apartments. As more and more humans arrive on Mars, there will be a need for effective utilization of space and rapid construction of liveable spaces. 3D printed building technology will be pivotal on Mars for effective and rapid construction of housing on Mars requiring minimum human involvement in construction.
Ever larger residential Craterhabs with 3D printed apartments.
Another example.
Eventually kilometer-size Craterhabs will become a reality, marking a major milestone in permanent human settlement on Mars.
A warehouse and manufacturing facility.
Craterhabs will provide modular solutions for a large-scale habitation. Craterhabs will be customizable to serve specific needs, from residential to farming, industrial and manufacturing, transport, hospitals and business areas.
Another manufacturing facility.
Manufacture on Mars will predominantly based on 3D printing. This will require much lesser number of workforce on Mars, and can be controlled from Earth
Another example
General layout of a residential Craterhab rendered without a roof.
Power generation on Mars
Venues for power generation on Mars for a human colony are very limited. In addition, per capita power requirement on Mars will be several time higher than that on Earth. Our patented Mareekh Process may become the mainstay of providing most of the power on Mars. This process involves In Situ Resource Utilization of permafrost or subsurface glaciers on Mars using solar or nuclear auxiliary sources to generate steam and run turbines on Martian surface, utilizing the very deep heat and pressure sink of the Martian atmosphere to run steam turbines much more efficiently as on Earth, and generate electricity. The thermodynamics of Mareekh Process are discussed in separate blog posts which are currently under development.
AI rendered what steam power plants running on Mareekh Process may look like on the Martian surface. These AI generated illustrations of Mareekh Process steam power plants are only speculative and demonstrate AI's imagination based on the core concept of Mareekh Process discussed in our patent documents and its description on our website. This AI artwork is in no way an accurate depiction of what a steam power plant running on Mareekh Process will look like, but it does give a general idea.
A steam power plant on Mars running on Mareekh Process
A massive steam power plant capable of generating hundreds of megawatts of power to supply the mega Craterhabs in the background.
Another massive power plant to run the Craterhab city in the background
A smaller power plant to supply power to a research base
Another small power plant
Transport on Mars
Open-air hyperloop or Maglev system will be an efficient and cost effective means of rapid transport between Craterhab colonies and cities. The very low atmospheric pressure on Mars will obviate the need for a sealed vacuum tube, greatly reducing the construction and operation cost, and low gravity will enable achieving magnetic levitation at a much lower power than needed on Earth.
A people's rover on Mars. These electric rovers will be the mainstay of transport for people for exploration and touring the uncharted Martian terrains. With heavier wheels and undercarriages will lower the centre of gravity of these vehicles in a low gravity environment for stability and safety. The lower gravity and cooler temperatures will also mean improved efficiency and range of batteries.