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Take a look at the concept art for manned missions to Mars.
Here's the art for Mars One, the Dutch one-way mission. How about Elon Musk's Mars mission. Notice anything?
The habitats are above ground, exposed to the harsh Martian climate. Now a German architectural firm has put forward a concept for robot-dug caves for future Martian explorers. That's right, if we want to live on Mars, we may have to go deeper.
In the conceptual plans from ZA Architects, digging robots would be sent to Mars ahead of a human mission to begin the construction of caves hewn from the basalt Martian crust. "It is inspired by basalt rock structures [on Earth], particularly by Fingal's Basalt Cave," explains Dmitry Zhuikov of ZA Architects in an email to Wired.co.uk. Keeping the astronauts underground will protect them from solar radiation, as unlike Earth, Mars doesn't have an atmosphere or magnetic field to stop solar rays.
On a simpler note, by digging caves "it will be possible to create something more spacious then small modules," says Zhuikov.
When the astronauts arrive, they'll add the finishing touches to the caves, including spiderweb-like canopies for storage.
Of course, it's arguable that it's probably easier to take modular surface habitats to Mars than heavy-duty digging robots, but intrepid explorers to Mars may one day find it easier (and more spacious) to live as Martian-mole people than to brave the harsh Martian landscape above.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
