1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,080 So you want to live on Mars. In theory, it's a super cool 2 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:08,119 idea, an expansive, high tech city of the future, operating under the 3 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:15,039 protection of shining glass domes, life in luxury on the interplanetary frontier. In 4 00:00:15,119 --> 00:00:19,399 practice, though, life on Mars will be rough going for a very long 5 00:00:19,519 --> 00:00:24,120 while. Those metal buildings and glass domes are great for science fiction, but 6 00:00:24,199 --> 00:00:28,559 we won't be seeing those things on Mars anytime this century. If you're serious 7 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:32,600 about occupying the Red planet, then the best bet is likely to be either 8 00:00:33,039 --> 00:00:38,600 life underground three D printing some kind of rock based structure, or living in 9 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:42,439 a balloon. Today, we are going to advocate for the balloon as the 10 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:48,600 ideal Martian accommodation, or more specifically, a highly engineered, self sufficient inflatable 11 00:00:48,759 --> 00:00:54,079 habitat. This is a technology that has been under development for three decades now, 12 00:00:54,119 --> 00:00:58,320 and it's just about ready to begin playing a massive role in the future 13 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:03,079 of human space flight. Inflatable habitats solve a number of problems that are inherent 14 00:01:03,359 --> 00:01:07,920 with trying to keep people alive and well outside of the Earth's atmosphere. They're 15 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:12,719 an excellent solution for future orbiting space stations, and they just might end up 16 00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:19,519 being the key to Mars colonization. This is the space race. Three D 17 00:01:19,599 --> 00:01:23,439 printing on Mars has been a long standing front runner in the design and engineering 18 00:01:23,439 --> 00:01:29,280 of practical Mars colonies. We've seen a few great three D printing concepts arrive 19 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:34,359 over the past few years, some of them even endorsed and funded by NASA. 20 00:01:34,439 --> 00:01:37,760 Those have been covered here on the Channel before, and we continue to 21 00:01:37,799 --> 00:01:41,359 be big fans of three D printing in space. But the more time we 22 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:46,439 spend looking into these inflatable habitats, the more inherent flaws start to become visible. 23 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:51,760 With additive manufacturing on Mars, the basic concept behind three D printing in 24 00:01:51,799 --> 00:01:56,680 space is that you would land a fully autonomous robotic system on an alien planet. 25 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:00,439 It would then deploy rovers to go out and scoop up mass of amounts 26 00:02:00,439 --> 00:02:04,200 of regulith, which is the loose dust and bits of rock that cover the 27 00:02:04,239 --> 00:02:08,159 surface. The collected material is then brought back to a high temperature oven that 28 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:13,639 mixes the regulath with a polymer substance and bakes it until it becomes a sort 29 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:17,680 of extrudable concrete. That concrete material is then laid down by a three D 30 00:02:17,759 --> 00:02:23,919 printing machine that builds up the structure one thin layer at a time, So 31 00:02:23,039 --> 00:02:28,120 that all sounds pretty neat, but obviously it's going to require us to land 32 00:02:28,199 --> 00:02:31,199 all of those robots on Mars and then a ton of electricity to power these 33 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:36,719 things while they go about the process of collecting and melting and three D printing. 34 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,120 Then as an end result, we're left with what is essentially an above 35 00:02:40,159 --> 00:02:46,080 ground cave made from Martian rock, which is very likely going to be physically 36 00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:50,759 toxic to human beings. And that hits on another big issue here. We 37 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:53,919 don't actually have a sample of Martian regulath, so we don't fully know what's 38 00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:58,479 in it, and we won't know for a few years at least, So 39 00:02:58,759 --> 00:03:01,159 the theory that we can just to bake it into Plato to make a house 40 00:03:01,599 --> 00:03:07,560 is more like an educated guest than a surebet. Whereas if we go the 41 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:12,599 inflatable route, we prefabricate the entire thing on Earth, loaded into a rocket 42 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:16,680 faring and ship into Mars. On arrival, the habitats self inflates, deploy 43 00:03:16,759 --> 00:03:21,719 solar panels, powers up, and just waits for a human crew to arrive. 44 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:27,199 When we're talking about establishing the first human settlement on a planet two hundred 45 00:03:27,199 --> 00:03:30,960 and ninety one million kilometers away. The most simple solution would most likely be 46 00:03:31,039 --> 00:03:35,840 considered the best, and I think we're pretty clear on which one of those 47 00:03:35,879 --> 00:03:40,759 ideas offers up the lowest complication. Now we can't talk about inflatable space habitats 48 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:47,240 without paying respects to the og Bigelow Aerospace. Before Musk, Bezos and Branson, 49 00:03:47,599 --> 00:03:53,599 there was an eccentric billionaire named Robert Bigelow who decided that he wanted to 50 00:03:53,639 --> 00:03:58,599 get into outer space. Bigelow amassed a fortune as the owner of the Budget 51 00:03:58,599 --> 00:04:02,759 Suites of America Hotel, and in nineteen ninety eight he leveraged that wealth to 52 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:09,639 found his own aerospace company with the dream of creating hotels in space. We 53 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:13,639 could do a whole documentary just on Robert Bigelow. He is a character, 54 00:04:13,759 --> 00:04:16,160 to say the least. Anyway, the company got straight to work on a 55 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:23,600 multi layer expandable space module technology that they were able to license directly from NASA. 56 00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:28,319 The Transhab project was an idea concocted for the International Space Station in the 57 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:31,600 late nineteen nineties, but they were never able to secure the necessary funding from 58 00:04:31,639 --> 00:04:36,439 members of US Congress. After a decade of private research and development, Bigelow 59 00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:42,600 had a viable technology that was ready for a demonstration in outer space. In 60 00:04:42,639 --> 00:04:47,079 twenty and twelve, NASA provided them eighteen million dollars in funding to develop the 61 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:53,600 Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or BEAM. By twenty sixteen, the module was birthed 62 00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:58,839 to ISS and successfully inflated to four meters in length and three point two three 63 00:04:58,879 --> 00:05:03,720 meters in diameter with a pressurized volume of sixteen cubic meters. Beam was more 64 00:05:03,800 --> 00:05:09,279 like a proof of concept than a functional module of the ISS. It's still 65 00:05:09,399 --> 00:05:13,399 up there inflated and pressurized, but from what I've heard, the astronauts mostly 66 00:05:13,439 --> 00:05:16,199 just use it as a closet and they never leave the door open just in 67 00:05:16,319 --> 00:05:20,639 case. But in the long term study of the beam's performance, it's proven 68 00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:27,360 that it can withstand micro meteor impacts without taking damage, and levels of cosmic 69 00:05:27,439 --> 00:05:31,120 radiation recorded inside the beam have been pretty much the same as they are anywhere 70 00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:36,279 else on the ISS. So from that one limited test we can form a 71 00:05:36,319 --> 00:05:43,759 pretty decent hypothesis that inflatable space station module's function at least as well as any 72 00:05:43,759 --> 00:05:48,040 other space station module. Unfortunately, Bigelow Aerospace collapsed in March twenty twenty. 73 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:54,279 Robert freaked out, laid off the entire staff, and ceased all operations permanently. 74 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:57,920 Later that year, he went on to found a new institute that was 75 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:02,240 dedicated to researching life after death. Like I said, he's a really interesting 76 00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:06,480 dude. So leave a comment if you'd watch a Robert Bigelow video. Luckily, 77 00:06:06,519 --> 00:06:11,759 for the future of inflatable space habs, the Sierra Nevada Corporation came along 78 00:06:11,759 --> 00:06:15,399 with their newly formed offshoot, CIRA Space. This is the same company that 79 00:06:15,439 --> 00:06:19,240 has been making the Dream Chaser space plane, and they are partnered with Blue 80 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:25,680 Origin to build the future orbital Reef space station. The Large Integrated Flexible Environment 81 00:06:25,879 --> 00:06:30,519 or LIFE Habitat is carrying on the same basic idea as the Transhab and the 82 00:06:30,519 --> 00:06:34,399 Beam before it. The fully inflated LIFE will be three stories tall and twenty 83 00:06:34,399 --> 00:06:39,959 seven feet in diameter, offering up about one third the internal volume of the 84 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:46,120 entires in one single module. In its compacted form, Life can be fitted 85 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:49,000 into a standard five meter rocket firing like the one on top of a Falcon 86 00:06:49,079 --> 00:06:54,720 nine. Once deployed into orbit, Life self inflates and then uses its own 87 00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:59,920 thruster system to maneuver to a final destination in orbit. Sierra is planning to 88 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:04,120 integrate Life modules into the upcoming orbital REEF station, but the modules are also 89 00:07:04,199 --> 00:07:10,199 designed to be fully self sufficient standalone space stations in their own right, and 90 00:07:10,279 --> 00:07:15,519 Sierra has envisioned Life as a modular system, so multiple habitats can be linked 91 00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:21,079 together to form orbital structures with massive internal volumes. So you might be wondering 92 00:07:21,279 --> 00:07:26,279 is it safe to live inside a space balloon? I mean, going to 93 00:07:26,319 --> 00:07:31,079 outer space and especially visiting an alien planet are extremely dangerous activities just as a 94 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:35,720 baseline, but all things considered, it doesn't really get much safer than these 95 00:07:35,759 --> 00:07:41,240 inflatable habitats. The outer shell may be soft, but it is made up 96 00:07:41,279 --> 00:07:46,560 from multiple layers of an ultra tough kevlar like material called vectran, which is 97 00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:49,759 a fiber spun from liquid crystal polymer, And if you look closely at the 98 00:07:49,839 --> 00:07:55,199 Life prototype you can see the fabric is woven together kind of like a basket 99 00:07:55,360 --> 00:08:00,800 to increase the material strength. Sierra says that when pressurized, their shell is 100 00:08:00,839 --> 00:08:05,759 stronger than steel, and they've been verifying that with a series of small scale 101 00:08:05,759 --> 00:08:11,199 tests over the past year. Obviously, that includes over pressure testing where they 102 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:15,319 just keep filling the vessel until it bursts. Those are actually pretty fun to 103 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:20,240 watch and they help Sierra to begin plotting data points about the consistency and longevity 104 00:08:20,279 --> 00:08:26,800 of their product. They also perform ballistic testing with these smaller prototypes. Basically, 105 00:08:26,839 --> 00:08:28,399 they take it out and shoot stuff at it to see what happens, 106 00:08:28,839 --> 00:08:33,320 varying up the size of the projectile, the speed, and the angle of 107 00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:37,159 attack. From the data they've gathered so far, Sierra is already projecting an 108 00:08:37,159 --> 00:08:43,200 operational lifespan of about sixty years for the life habitat. But just for the 109 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:48,320 sake of being paranoid, what happens if something does puncture the shell, does 110 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:50,919 it burst like a balloon? Will you get sucked out into outer space? 111 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:56,320 The answer is no and no. So this is where we have to deprogram 112 00:08:56,360 --> 00:09:01,960 our minds from what science fiction has taught us. Space is a vacuum in 113 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:05,559 the sense that it is an extremely low pressure environment, but it's not like 114 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:11,159 there's a giant dison out there just sucking up everything. The ambient pressure in 115 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:16,080 outer space is around negative fourteen psi. The air pressure on Earth at sea 116 00:09:16,159 --> 00:09:22,279 level is around positive fourteen psi, so about thirty pounds of pressure differential per 117 00:09:22,399 --> 00:09:26,919 square inch. It's not enough to cause an explosive decompression or suck anything out 118 00:09:26,919 --> 00:09:31,840 through a hole. If a micro meteorite did puncture the inflatable hab it would 119 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:35,600 be like a pinhole in a bicycle tire. Air would leak out, but 120 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:41,480 just slowly and steadily it could be fixed. Is the point. What about 121 00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:45,960 radiation? The good news here is that soft shells actually lend themselves very well 122 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:52,600 to highly effective radiation shielding. The best material for blocking radiation is actually hydrogen. 123 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:56,879 This is why you'll often hear people talk about using water as a radiation 124 00:09:56,919 --> 00:10:01,200 shield. Polyethylene is a plastic polymer with a very high hydrogen content, and 125 00:10:01,279 --> 00:10:05,200 it can be woven into a matrix that can be layered into the shell composition 126 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:09,559 of the inflatable module. If you've worn one of those surgical masks over the 127 00:10:09,559 --> 00:10:16,159 past few years, those use a very similar woven polypropylene matrix to capture viruses 128 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:20,919 and stuff. Bigelow has also had some ideas in their old designs about high 129 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:26,240 hydrogen content foam materials that could be integrated into the soft shell to create a 130 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:31,879 very effective radiation shield. Again, leaving the Earth's magnetosphere is extremely dangerous no 131 00:10:31,919 --> 00:10:37,200 matter what, but the inflatable habitat is at least as safe, or maybe 132 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:41,279 even safer than anything else we've got. Now that we know all that, 133 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:45,519 we can get back into how these inflatable habitats could function as a part of 134 00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:50,080 a Mars colony. These modules are designed around a solid center core that contains 135 00:10:50,159 --> 00:10:56,120 all of the primary systems, communications, life support, power, and all 136 00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:00,480 of the hard goods like research equipment, the medical bay and exercise gear are 137 00:11:00,519 --> 00:11:05,600 stored in here at launch. Then after the shell is inflated, the astronauts 138 00:11:05,639 --> 00:11:09,639 arrive and move all of these things to the outer areas. There are two 139 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:15,679 distinct design applications here, zero gravity habs and planetary habs. Zero G is 140 00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:18,399 what Sierra has been working on so far, and from an engineering perspective, 141 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:22,919 these are much easier to design. You can separate different areas of the hab 142 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:28,039 using just soft baffles. You don't need a solid floor or stairs or anything 143 00:11:28,159 --> 00:11:33,720 rigid on the inside. But they do have plans for future life modules that 144 00:11:33,759 --> 00:11:39,360 will function with gravity for a serious colony on Mars will probably want a combination 145 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:43,559 of ground based infrastructure and an orbital space station to function as a waypoint in 146 00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:48,279 between Earth and Mars, same idea that NASA is working on with their lunar 147 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:52,440 Gateway station for the Moon. So the Life modules can handle both of those 148 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:56,799 applications. Sierra has an idea that if they link together enough modules, they 149 00:11:56,799 --> 00:12:01,720 can form a ring shaped space station, which could then be rotated to create 150 00:12:01,759 --> 00:12:07,840 an artificial gravity effect. And the current Life habitat design is only based on 151 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:13,519 existing rocket capabilities, but there are much bigger rockets coming soon that will offer 152 00:12:13,639 --> 00:12:18,519 much larger cargo faring sizes. Bigger fairing means the opportunity for a bigger module. 153 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,720 In a March twenty twenty three interview with Fraser Kane at Universe Today, 154 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:28,519 the senior director of engineering at Sierra Space, Sean Buckley, revealed that his 155 00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:33,519 company is already running the numbers on what they could accomplish with a SpaceX starship 156 00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:37,480 sized cargo firing. The starship is promised to deliver a hundred metric tons of 157 00:12:37,519 --> 00:12:43,399 mass directly to the surface of Mars in a fairing that is nine meters wide 158 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:48,759 at its base and around seventeen meters in length, but Elon Musk is already 159 00:12:48,759 --> 00:12:54,080 talking about making the upper stage ship even longer, and SpaceX is developing even 160 00:12:54,159 --> 00:12:58,919 more powerful Raptor three engines, so that could end up being even more capable 161 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:03,279 by the time where action flying these things to Mars. Sierra is estimating that 162 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:09,320 by taking full advantage of Starship they can create a jumbo sized life module that 163 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:13,519 would expand to over two thousand cubic meters in volume. The ISS is only 164 00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:18,840 about nine hundred cubic meters, so with one single launch, Sierra could more 165 00:13:18,879 --> 00:13:22,600 than double the working space. Fully inflated, the habitat could be as much 166 00:13:22,639 --> 00:13:28,519 as sixty feet in length and forty two fifty meters in diameter, So with 167 00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:31,159 one of those in orbit and one on the ground, we would essentially have 168 00:13:31,279 --> 00:13:37,720 a fully functioning Martian infrastructure that would even be relatively safe and comfortable to support 169 00:13:37,759 --> 00:13:43,000 a long term human presence. I think will be hard pressed to find an 170 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:43,600 idea that can really beat that.