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Students in Terraforming Mars have been explorers in time and space. They have critically compared Earth to Mars and explored the terrain of Mars using digital platforms and maps. They have researched and presented to peers the previous and planned missions to the Red Planet. We based our colony landing site on the same landing site of the 2020 NASA Perserverence rover and it's drone Ingenuity, whose launch we watched live online. They are scheduled to land in Jezero Crater on Mars on 18 February 2021. They have worked in critical issue teams using the Design Thinking Process to develop a plan to deal with the major stumbling blocks of establishing a successful first colony base on Mars. In their teams they have designed an experimental model relevant to their critical issue. Due to the majority of the term being online they only had a few lessons to design and carry out their experiment so these were much briefer than normal. They have collated and organised all their learning into a handover document for next year's Mission to Mars teams. Throughout the course they have built their knowledge in interdisciplinary streams of science and practiced skills in effective collaboration in small and large teams. We also had two sub-committees - Governance and Ethics - that met to debate overall colony issues.
Mental & Physical Health team
Mental & Physical Health team
Mission statement: To keep the colony safe, and to analyse threats to the team, while coming up with solutions to counter them.
Team Members: Kate, Enuki, Keira, Cameron and Millie.
The aim of our team's experiment was to find out which fabrics would allow less fine dust particles to get through.
We collected various types of fabrics and attempted to make baby powder (closest size to Mars dust) go through the fabric and recorded which one was most resistant.
We found that the disposable face mask, microfibre towel and artificial silk didn't let any powder through, opposed to the fleece having 0.02 g through and the brocade having 0.06 g.
water
water
Mission statement: To discover the best way of recovering water from Mars as well as filtering it to a level that is safe for consumption. Additionally, we aim to supply the entire colony with the water that is needed for our prolonged survival on Mars.
Team Members: Zahara, Max, Eric, Ruby and Selina.
One of our projects was to compare designs to extract water on Mars.
We chose to pursue the research that we did because water is an essential resource so a reliable source must be established, and means of collecting the water efficiently must exist.
As well as this, the water we collect must actually be drinkable because we do not want to poison our colony with Martian dust and perchlorates (perchlorates are highly toxic chemical compounds found within the Martian environment.) Assumptions we made were that in our landing area of Jezero Crater there was water ice ~35m under the rocky surface.
The best design to use to extract the ice, in a way that is applicable on mars. Preliminary ideas were made on this topic by backfilling the space the drill drills into with hot air and collecting the water from the melting ice. As well as this, it was thought that the ice could simply be drilled into and augered out like the rock, this however would not collect all the water and the more water collected, the better as it is so essential.
Our second project was filtering water
The aim of this experiment was to discover which types of material would best filter particles of Mars dust out of water at a 1:20 ratio of dust to water.
We replicated Mars dust using baby powder, which is a similar size to the dust.
The process of this experiment was mixing the solution in a clean beaker after measuring the dust and water out (using a scale and measuring cylinder) and then pouring it through a funnel, blocked by the material chosen at the time (the filter, the independent variable).
We waited for the maximum amount of water to drip through over time, then measured it in a controlled environment, testing the light levels of the water in Lux values with a light meter app as the purer the water the more light would be able to pass through it.
Pure Cotton flannelette was discovered to be the most efficient filter at filtering the baby powder from water.
All other filters managed to at least filter some of the baby powder, as it was observed to still be on the material.
food
food
Mission statement: To provide a wide variety of healthy and nutritious food for our 80 colonists. To ensure food security for our colonists adhering to dietary requirements, and further ensuring that food is grown and stored in a safe and ethical manner while on Mars.
Team members: Rithvika, Mitika, Ryan, Thehara, Benjamin, Angelo, and Kirill.
The aim of the experiment was to test how well hydroponics compares to Earth soil in terms of growing spinach.
We planted spinach seedlings in hydroponic systems at pH levels between 5 and 7 in increments of 0.2 and other spinach seedlings in regular Earth soil of a pH of 5.5.
We compared the length of the stem and leaves of each plant and found that most of them grew around a few millimeters after several days.
However, from the overall results gathered around a week later, it became obvious the hydroponic plants were dying. They wilted, turned yellow and brown in some cases and would no longer grow. Some leaves ended up with a crunchy texture and others soft with no clear correlation between the initial Ph and the condition of the plant.
The Earth soil seedlings grew perfectly well and showed that there was nothing wrong with the spinach itself.
In order to determine the issue with the hydroponic grown seedlings, the pH of their water was tested. This showed that nearly all of them had changed their pH levels from what was expected and initially put in. Consequently, the results from the experiment may not have been due to the spinach’s inability to cope with the initial pH’s that their systems had but rather the eventual level each system contained which in some cases was well above standard limits.
More experimentation is needed on hydroponics and the spinach plants may also need a few days time to adapt to the hydroponic transplantation before being put under different pH experimental conditions.
Day 1 Hydroponics
Day 8 Hydroponics
Day 8 Soil
Day 1 pH 5.2 hydroponic
Day 3 pH 5.2 (had become pH 6.32!!) hydroponic
energy
energy
Mission statement: To produce and store energy that can sustain the energy needs of our colony in the most efficient manner possible.
Team Members: Jude, Jasper, Rohan, Parsa, and Aabshaar.
The aim of our experiment was to find the effect dust had on the energy production of solar cells.
Our experiment found a relationship between the energy output and amount of talcum powder on the solar cells. We found there was an exponential decrease in energy output as the amount of talcum powder increased.
Graph 1: Talcum Powder (g) vs Volts and Amps (mA)
Graph 2: Amt. of Talcum Powder vs Milliwatts
habitat
habitat
Mission statement: To gain understanding of the critical aspects of a martian habitat/s for a colony of 80 people and apply it to plausible designs.
Team Members: Mark, Lachlan, Chloe, Jason, and Chris.
Our experiment included sending out a survey to the Terraforming Mars Class and analysing the results. The aim was to get an overall view of what people want from a Mars habitat, and to get a comparison of two designs.
Some interesting things we found were:
A 50/50 split on going above or below ground
Aesthetics of the habitat was considered very important (possibly coming under mental health)
People want a balance between not going insane in a dull, confined area, and not dying to the harsh martian environment (to be expected)
The creation of two final designs from a shortlist of designs also taught us a reasonable amount about what goes into a habitat.
For example, being year 10s, we are quite restricted in the scientific detail we can add to a habitat. Calculations of stress on certain areas, fluid dynamics (airflow) are things that should be considered when making a habitat, but hard to do as Year 10 students.
transport
transport
Mission statement: To design a rover(s) with enough functionality to support long as well as short trips and perform required tasks.
Team Members: Moin, Keira, Dom, and Alex.
Our aim was to investigate the efficiency of the Rocker-Bogie suspension system by comparing it to a conventional suspension.
We used Lego Mindstorms to build a rover with Rocker-Bogie suspension and compared its performance to a conventional car setup. We filmed the rovers and uploaded the footage to a software called Tracker to analyse and compare the designs.
Figure 1: Conventional suspension rover
Figure 2: Rocker-Bogie suspension rover
Findings: the results clearly show the Rocker-Bogie suspension performed much better than the conventional car as it traversed the terrain easily and quickly whereas the conventional car often lost traction and got stuck. The Rocker-Bogie suspension, as seen in the graphs, also allowed the rover’s body to move freely with the terrain elevation whereas the conventional suspension moved the body down when the wheels went up due to the springs, which could prove a nuisance on Mars' terrain - badly damaging the body.
Figure 3: Rocker-Bogie Suspension Movement
As seen in Figure 3, the movement of the body and the wheel are in synchronised shape though the movement of the wheel is greater than the one of the body, meaning the suspension is doing its job at keeping the rover body stable as possible.
Figure 4: Conventional Suspension Movement
Compare that with the conventional suspension and we find there is no clear synchronization to be found within the two graphs except their decline, indicating the suspension system did not affect the body as much as the Rocker-Bogie suspension did its body.
This helped support our choice of the efficiency of the Rocker-Bogie suspension system for a Mars transport vehicle, creating a body high above ground with this suspension allows for no obstacles to crash the body or instability to occur.
atmosphere
atmosphere
Mission statement: To research and experiment with strategies to survive the temperatures, dust, and lack of oxygen on Mars.
Team Members: Tiff, Fae, Sota, Bilal, and Douglas.
Initially, we were planning to do our experiment on testing the effectiveness of spacesuit materials in blocking radiation. However, the reason we did not pursue this experiment was that it would have been too dangerous to be exposed to the radiation. Additionally, we did not have access to the same radiation as the ones on Mars, and we didn’t have access to the same materials as the spacesuits.
The aim of our experiment was to see how activated charcoal absorbs carbon dioxide compared to non-activated charcoal.
We could not get results as we did not have enough time to work with the equipment that was available. The values kept going over the limit of the CO2 probe and we could not get reliable results. The recommendation that we would make is to check the range of the equipment and to calibrate the machinery beforehand and leave plenty of time for that - we were constrained by time. We also recommend that you go lightly on the dry ice (the item we used for generating the carbon dioxide). In fact, even simply breathing into the chamber would cause the machinery to peak occasionally. However, the experimental design has a lot of benefits and is a good experiment to try again and improve.
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