Gallery: NASA Digs This Idea for Robots to Build Igloos on Mars
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This is the Mars Ice House, a sloping, triangular structure that would be autonomously built by robots using additive manufacturing techniques.
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Building homes out of ice on Mars makes a fair amount of sense. We’ve known for some time that Mars is home to large quantities of water ice, and that this ice could serve as a locally sourced building material. Ice is also translucent, and all homes need a little natural light.
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To make the shelter more livable, the designing team a double-walled structure—a shell within a shell that would create a more intimate dwelling space surrounded by a “contemplative yard” area.
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Two robots will build the Ice Houses. One will collect ice from underneath the planet’s surface of regolith (although that could change, given NASA’s water-on-Mars news) and another will deposit the ice, layer by layer, into the structure of the home.
