MMIent

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tp2ri77TS-Vbxh60MNMRbFVWEllxh-Ga?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QwRndrbzmDbl-Gn-w3fnWMbdQfqTmwC7/view?usp=sharing

INTRODUCTION

Long-term missions on Mars have been considered the next step in cosmic industry development by the wide public for a while now. /Previous robotic missions to Mars have helped us gain substantial knowledge regarding the planet's geology and atmosphere, and identified the many challenges for human exploration./ посил.1/ How things seem now, transporting all of the tools, furniture, even resources like food, oxygen and water, is an exceptionally high-costing concept. Our team chose a challenge “OUTFITTING A MARS HABITAT: A 3D PRINT CHALLENGE” with a dedication to solve this problem, to make it clear, that low-costing long-term missions on Mars are possible, and that developing tools for them can help people on Earth now.

Our project ‘Middle Class on Mars’`s purpose is to show how a person using three 3D printers, a short list of brought supplies, a lot of work and imagination can live on Mars. It is not a secret, that an extremely famous Elon Musk is now developing a similar project with his company ‘SpaceX’ and his purpose is, in fact, to inhabit Mars or, how they themselves describe it ‘to make humanity multiplanetary’. We, of course, have heard of them a lot. And we do not want to challenge them. As a team of students from National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”`s Educational and Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering we are seeking new engineering choices that can help people live comfortably and happily, even on Mars.

In the next part you can read a description for all the tools and furniture we made 3D models of during this challenge.

TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION

Unfortunately, our rover was damaged during a harsh landing. As a result, we needed to design a new wheel for it. Inspired by the rover ‘Perseverance’ from ‘Mars-2020’ NASA mission, we came up with this design for a wheel.

As printers are limited in space, we decided to split this solid construction into 34 pieces held together by 34 fasteners. It is impressively useful for us in Mars`s conditions, because if one of the pieces is broken, we do not need to reprint the whole construction, we can just change the broken element with a new one. External parts are printed on the plastic printer and internal parts (needles) are printed on the metal printer.

 Modular System

The decision to make practically every piece of furniture modular came after the realization that It has numerous advantages over standard furniture. This system allows astronauts to rearrange their habitat according to preferences, objectives, and circumstances while easing installation process due to reduced weight per part. This is indeed a creative way of thinking, that provides astronauts space for their fantasy.

This block is the main element of the furniture system. Every block is printed on the concrete printer. It holds everything in place and can serve as storage, a structural element, or a bed!

This block serves as a tabletop. It is placed on top of 2 structural blocks to create a fully working table.

This block allows astronauts to integrate tables with other furniture. Also, it can be used to add height to structures.

All these blocks can be connected and expanded by special bolts and/or bars.

Bars are used to connect blocks vertically and bolts are used to connect blocks horizontally.

There are 3 variations of bolts: short, middle, and long.

Long bolts should be used to connect 2 blocks that are standing side to side.

Middle bolts can be used to connect 2 blocks that are standing front to front.

A short bolt serves as an attachment point for various things that can be designed by astronauts.

For example, a simple container can be used for storage or specific rubbish. We consider it ergonomic, knowing that such a container (especially 130mm in height) can be in a big use.

Also, it can be a hassle to find something in long-term storage or just in rooms. For this purpose, we designed a storage labeling system. It consists of 2 elements: Label and clamp.

This can be customized in software to engrave anything from letters to pictures.

This clamp is used to hang labels onto structural blocks.

We recommend to mark everything in this way:

Example: A312

A - Room letter

3 - Id of the specific structure

1 - Column

2 - Row

To easily screw everything together we designed a helper knob.

Also, to design a screwdriver we made a creative decision to turn two screwdrivers into one and make one basis, with a place to storage both bits. Furthermore, It can be used as a prying tool for various repairs.

For inspiration we used a YouTube short on the channel ‘EXCESSORIZE ME.’

Additionally, there is a simple fork and spoon. For material-saving purposes, we decided to partially make a spoon and a fork from plastic

Another very important aspect is light. As we wanted to allow astronauts to fully customize their habitat, we only designed 1 simple lamp. By doing so, we hope to allow astronauts to design their own lamps depending on their preferences.

The lamp consists of 5 parts + selvage LEDS from the landing craft.

Unfortunately, there was one element that had to be "out of the grid". This is a chair.

However, It still has 2 attaching points for various extensions.

Trash is unpreventable even in a mars colony, so we designed this simple Trash can with a divider to split wet and dry waste.

The major problem that we encountered was how to organize a toilet. To get rid of unnecessary trips to landing craft we designed a WCS that can be used to organize toilets in the habitat. To do so, we decided to use a special bacterium method to dissolve solid into methane. To deal with liquid we decided that the best way is to salvage the liquid collecting device from the landing module and integrate it into the recycling system.

It is a bin-like object, with straight edges outside and angled edges inside. It has 2 holes, one for connecting to ventilation to extract methane and one to extract byproducts of bacteria - organic fertilizer, that can help to grow higher plants, like wheat or lettuce. For an inspiration we used a scheme presented by Antoine de Ramon N'Yeurt, that describes process of what these bacteria actually do to an organic solid matter, that needs to be recycled (for example non-edible food or feces):

Anaerobic digestion is a useful process, during which different anaerobic bacteria are diggesting an organic matter. This is how Pennsylvania State University microbe researcher Christopher House described an anaerobic digestion (in the article ‘Dinner is ready’ by Katie Serena): ‘Imagine if someone were to finetune our system so that you could get 85 percent of the carbon and nitrogen back from waste into protein without having to use hydroponics or artificial light. That would be a fantastic development for deep-space travel. It’s faster than growing tomatoes or potatoes’.

When doing research we also found out about the MELiSSA (Micro Ecological Life Support System Alternative) project, using anaerobic digestion to provide food for astronauts. It is a little bit beyond our theme, so we decided not to put much thought into it, but we do assume that this project can be indeed useful for further development of a theme provided. On their official web-site MELiSSA Foundation present a simple scheme, representing their project:

It is fascinating how microalgae and different kinds of bacteria can recycle, to put it simply, astronaut`s poo and turn it into methane, organic fertilizer for higher plants, water and consumable food.

We can not provide a full data of which bacteria should be used and in which quantities, because in anaerobic digestion it is usually not one bacteria, but a lot of different kinds. However, we find the book ‘Wastewater Bacteria (Wastewater Microbiology)’ really useful on this matter.

Also, we want to present a simple model of an oxygen generator for a station on Mars. It is not a secret that bringing higher plants is a high-costing process, also they can be broken during the flight. Bringing seeds of higher plants is a solution, but they need a lot of time to grow and start producing oxygen, which is so important in our mission.

Scientists, who faced this challenge, have found a solution in microalgae. We present an environment for them to grow, consume CO2 and produce O2.

Using microalgae in space is, indeed, a highly-discussed matter. It is said that to the May 2018 it has been 51 investigations about using microalgae in space (A review of algal research in space). According to the ‘Cyanobacteria and microalgae in supporting human habitation on Mars’ research, microalgae are in a lot of ways more useful in space than higher plants: can provide oxygen, can be consumed as food, and even digest non-organic matter. We consider them as a new way of solving an oxygen transporting problem, which astronauts faced for many years.

The sink was designed with a wall-mounted water faucet in mind.

It is placed on a modified structural block and also should be connected to the wastewater recycling system. By that we mean a recycling system that is used on the ISS. We understand how important recycling of water in space is, of course. It was also well-described on the official web-site of McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. In their article dated May 26, 2020 they write: ‘Water is dense—so even a little bit of it is heavy. This makes it very expensive to send water from Earth to space—more than $83,000 per gallon to be exact!’ Considering this, we find a water-recycling closed-loop system indeed useful.

In our project, we consider that such a system was taken from a spaceship that our astronaut launched in. But, we guess, that an honorable mention should be made about researchers from Belgium (BRUSSELS (Reuters)), who developed a machine that turns pee into water using solar energy. “We’re able to recover fertilizer and drinking water from urine using just a simple process and solar energy,” said University of Ghent researcher Sebastiaan Derese. We can not present a model of their system, of course, still, we assume that on Mars it can be exceptionally useful.

SPACE AGENCY DATA

During our work, the most helpful for us was data from the European Space Agency - we are describing now, specifically, data from MELiSSA Pilot Plant, their department. They have done impressive research about how we can live self-sufficiently in space - well, to put it simply, how can humankind create a whole biological system on board a spaceship or inside the walls of a house on another planet. Also NASA is a honorable mention, especially “Deep Space Habitability Design Guidelines Based on the NASA NextSTEP Phase 2 Ground Test Program”

HACKATHON JOURNEY

At first, when we heard about a challenge from NASA, we thought that it would be impossible for a small group of students from Ukraine to compete in such a program. But then we read about the challenge more and more, and we understood: we really can try this out. Our team is four engineering students with a passion for a chosen field of work, dedicated to overcome all the obstacles on our way, to bring people happiness and maybe even a new, better life.

During working on our project ‘Middle Class on Mars’ especially because we needed to do an impressively massive research on the theme, we found out about a lot of interesting stuff you usually would not even think of! It was a new experience for all of us, so we are thankful for such an opportunity.

Tools:

• Blender
• Solidworks
• Fusion 360

Here, we present the links for all mentioned articles, from which we took inspiration while working.

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734975022000428#s0005 - extremely important research about microalgae and cyanobacteria and how they can help astronauts.
2. https://www.melissafoundation.org/page/waste-treatment - article on MELiSSA Foundation official web-site about the waste treatment in space.
3. https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/microbes-may-help-astronauts-transform-human-waste-food/ - article, from which we took inspiration for designing our bathroom.
4. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:854121/FULLTEXT02 - research about anaerobic digestion.
5. https://www.insider.com/machine-turns-urine-pee-into-drinkable-water-2016-7 - article with video about Belgium researches and their pee-into-water machine
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576517315722#ec-research-data - a review on microalgae
7. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fXvFpmZQXFc - inspiration for a screwdriver design
8. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001427/downloads/20200001427.pdf - Deep Space Habitability Design Guidelines Based on the NASA NextSTEP Phase 2 Ground Test Program

#Mars, #Modular, #Ukraine