Antarctic Spaceport

For sure, we don’t want you to get tired of our story about the #HackMars challenge (please read our past post: “How to generate electricity during a snow storm: Piezo Snow Roof”) and our “Mars Piezo Rover” concept design we created to allow our friend the astronaut Mark Watney sailing the Martian dust ocean.

But, we really spent a good time hacking Mars, and as a result we produced some interesting ideas when doing so.

You should remember the astronauts HAB was located in Acidalia Planitia (31N 28W) around 3,200 Km far away from Schiaparelli crater, the region were the MAV (Mars Ascension Vehicle) was placed and almost 10,000 Km away from Bradbury Landing, the region where the Curiosity rover is located.

So, our plan B was to send Mark Watney to Hale crater (36S 36 W) 4,000 Km away from his HAB, instead to send him to Schiaparelli, in order to get access to icy water, therefore to get access to a unlimited source of Hydrogen and Oxygen, to prepare fuel and pressurize the rover.

Therefore, our plan B required the NASA Ares III control mission on earth to be relocated to the

in the Antarctic, in order to simulate the similar conditions which the astronaut could face in Hale crater and provide reliable instructions and support.

When doing a little research about the South Pole Base, we found they have a recently updated first class facilities and a highly motivated mission deployed down there.

Although the big surprise is they are still running the facilities with C-130 jet fuel, because they use a Hercules C-130 cargo airplane to ship the supplies, therefore is easier for them to use the airplane as a supply tank as well.

Surely, they will replace the jet fuel for solar panels and wind turbines in the future. (Moreover, they can use the “Piezo Snow Roof”)

The bottom line is, what we are suggesting here is to design and build a space port in the Antarctic, because there are obvious advantages in doing so:

• The extreme weather conditions will allow to prepare the space missions in a most realistic way, both physiologically and physically.

• Engineers and designers could be more accurate when designing the future astronauts HABS, as well as the mechanism to get rocket fuel and resources from glaciers.

• The Antarctic territory is the perfect place to simulate more realistic rescue situations for astronauts and robonauts working in space colonization.

• Developing a fully autonomous Antarctic Spaceport, will be a realistic first step to replicate an autonomous HAB system in Mars.

So, we strongly believe an Antarctic Spaceport will boost the space program, because is the perfect continent where engineers can test fast, fail fast and adjust fast.