- Living on Mars – New ideas for habitats Credit: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute
Advanced textile materials may be just the ticket to help make a human mission to Mars a 21st century reality.
Aeronautical and textile engineering students from North Carolina State University in Raleigh have tamed to tackle life-support issues to beef up living conditions for an expedition to the red planet.
Textile engineering student Brent Carter said a key research task has focused on creating living quarters that would protect astronauts from the elements on Mars – from radiation to meteorites.
Using advanced textile materials — which are flexible and can be treated with various coatings — students designed a 1,900-square-foot inflatable living space that could comfortably house four to six astronauts.
A big plus in the university research is looking beyond solid materials like aluminum, fiberglass and carbon fibers, which while effective, are large, bulky and difficult to pack within a spacecraft.
The student-designed living space is made by layering radiation-shielding materials like Demron™. That’s the same material as used in the safety suits for nuclear workers cleaning up Japan’s Fukushima plant.
Demron™ was layered with a gas-tight material made from a polyurethane substrate to hold in air, as well as gold-metalicized film that reflects, for example, ultraviolet rays.
Dome-shaped
The living space is dome-shaped which can thwart pesky meteors, prone to showering down on the red planet. The objects bounce off the astronauts’ home away from home without causing significant damage.
“We’re using novel applications of high-tech textile technology and applying them to aerospace problems,” explains Alex Ray, a textile engineering student and team member. “Being able to work with classmates in aeronautical engineering allowed us to combine our knowledge from both disciplines to really think through some original solutions.”
Textile engineering professor and former aerospace engineer, Warren Jasper, served as the faculty sponsor.
Jasper and the student team will present their project at the NASA-sponsored Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition, to be held June 6-8 in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
RASC-AL was formed to provide university-level engineering students the opportunity to design projects based on NASA engineering challenges, as well as offer NASA access to new research and design projects by students.
By Leonard David
