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NASA Will Award You $5,000 For Your Finest Mars City Idea

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-to-mars dept.

coondoggie writes with this snippet from Network World: NASA this week said it would look to the public for cool ideas on how to build a sustainable environment on Mars with the best plan earning as much as $5,000. With the Journey to Mars Challenge, NASA wants applicants to describe one or more Mars surface systems or capabilities and operations that are needed to set up and establish a technically achievable, economically sustainable human living space on the red planet. Think air, water, food, communications systems and the like.

4 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by itzly · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Build the city on earth instead. Breathable atmosphere, easy resupply missions, plenty of water.

  2. Surface? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My first idea is to dig in. Put the people underground, as much as possible. Put critical infrastructure underground as well. No matter how you build, or what you build with, surface structures are going to be vulnerable. Put greenhouses on the surface, put solar panels on the surface, put hazardous research and fabrication on the surface. Put the PEOPLE underground. Dig them in where they can sleep soundly, knowing that they are safe from piddling little things like storms, or meteors, or whatever.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  3. City? by Translation+Error · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What I want to know is where in the world the word 'city' came from in the article's title. There's nothing anywhere close to a city mentioned in the article itself, with the goal of the challenge being to 'establish a technically achievable, economically sustainable human living space'. I don't know about anyone else, but to me, that sounds like an outpost rather than anything like a city.

    --
    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  4. My plan -- I just saved NASA $6,666,000,000 by Spy+Handler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "NASA is working on... the rocket expected to launch the [Mars] mission -- the Space Launch System"

    My plan:

    1. Kill the Senate Launch System and bury it in a landfill
    2. Fire everyone who thought it was a good idea
    3. Wait around a few years and play Kerbal Space Program
    4. Buy a ride on Falcon Heavy R and save a billion bucks per launch
    5. Now you can afford to haul more stuff to Mars for a city

    Thank you, I'll take the $5000 in cashier's check, Visa or Mastercard.... but definitely NOT American Express.