WASHINGTON (TIP): To protect astronauts from the harsh Martian environment, the best building material for a new home on the Red Planet may lie in ice, say NASA researchers.

The surface of Mars has extreme temperatures and the atmosphere does not provide adequate protection from high-energy radiation. The researchers believe that their “Ice Home” design provides a sound engineering solution to offer astronauts a safe place to call home. The Mars Ice Home is a large inflatable torus, a shape similar to an inner tube that is surrounded by a shell of water ice. This is just one of many potential concepts for sustainable habitation on the Red Planet in support of NASA’s journey to Mars. “After a day dedicated to identifying needs, goals and constraints we rapidly assessed many crazy, out of the box ideas and finally converged on the current Ice Home design, which provides a sound engineering solution,” Kevin Vipavetz from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, said in a statement on Thursday.

The Mars Ice Home design has several advantages that make it an appealing concept, according to the scientists.

Source: IANS