SPACE.com: Once the basic structure is complete, what is next for the module?
ZUBRIN: We have to fit out the interior. We have a design effort underway right now to design the interior and then we'll be sending out bid packages for contractors to bid on building the interior.
SPACE.com: What kind of features are you looking at for the interior design:
ZUBRIN: We want a flexible layout for the interior. We want to experiment with different forms of interior architecture to learn about the livability and human factors. We want something which we can change its interior layout. That said, it has to accomplish certain functions: It has to house six people. It has to have public areas for socializing, laboratory work and communications, it has to have a simulated air lock, it has to have a simulated solar flare shelter, facilities for cooking, et cetera.
We intend to ship it in June, install it during July, and operate it briefly in late-July and early-August of this year, and during the entire field season next year.
SPACE.com: How is this facility and the research station as a whole going to contribute to the goal of readying the world to send astronauts to Mars?
ZUBRIN: I think it's going to have a major impact. I think that what we're going to be able to establish, first and foremost is, first of all the comparative utility of human explorers to robotic explorers.
By conducting field-exploration out of this facility in a Mars-analog mode, we're going to be able to compare how effective such explorers can be relative to -- on the one side -- unimpaired geological explorers operating on Earth in a conventional fashion, and -- on the other hand -- robots. And I think we're going to be able to show that the trade-off in favor of human explorers is very cost effective.
We're also going to learn how to make human explorers more effective in a martian environment. We're going to learn appropriate field techniques. We're going to learn what will work in terms of taking the dust off people going in and out of an airlock and what won't. It's easy to define a technique of de-dusting people that will work. The question is will it work if people are trying to get work done, and they have to go in and out of the [habitation module] a lot. Or will it get in the way?
All sorts of procedures need to be worked out.
SPACE.com: You have also mentioned you want to gather data about how a crew operates. What types of measurements are important?
ZUBRIN: I'll give you one example: The single-largest consumable item that is used by the crew in a mission of this type is water. Water is much bigger than food, and we know how much food people eat. But how much water does a crew use? Well, you know how much drinking water a crew uses. That's a well-known number. But what are the people using to wash with, to cook with, to do all sorts of functions with? That is a somewhat intangible number, and it's somewhat flexible. It's basically, perhaps, proportional to morale.
SPACE.com: So depressed people might drink more Tang, or hog the shower?
ZUBRIN: That’s not clear. It is just not relevant to look at water use of people just sitting in a hangar at Johnson Space Center, sitting around playing chess. We're talking about people doing field work. Different story - in a dusty, dirty environment. How much water are they going to use? Now another number of interest, which is a technological number, is how efficiently can you recycle that water? But still that basic number of water use of a crew actively conducting field exploration on the surface of Mars is not known. We’re going to find it out.
And that's an essential number in figuring out the launch-mass of the mission. We're also going to get an idea of what character type for a crew is to Mars. And how big the crew really needs to be. And we're also going to make concrete for millions of people what a human Mars mission might be like.
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