Walk around a Mars base

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1 / 18 A base that exists only on paperThis base is a concept drawn from NASA studies, and none has been built. You stand on the graded pad south of the habitat at an eye height of 1.6 m. Walk with WASD or the arrow keys and press Space to jump.

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A base that exists only on paper
This base is a concept drawn from NASA studies, and none has been built. You stand on the graded pad south of the habitat at an eye height of 1.6 m. Walk with WASD or the arrow keys and press Space to jump.
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Habitat and airlock
The habitat stands on six legs so that blown dust does not pile against its floor. To go outside, the crew steps into the airlock, closes the inner door and pumps the air out before the hatch opens. In thin air every litre of air is worth saving.
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Inside the habitat
This cutaway follows NASA's CHAPEA habitat, a 3D-printed building of 158 m² in Houston where four volunteers lived for 378 days. Each person has a small room; the galley, table, gym, medical bay and lab sit around them. The roof is left off so you can look in.
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Exercise and jumping in 0.38 g
Mars pulls at 3.73 m/s², 0.38 of Earth. Bones and muscles weaken in low gravity, so the treadmill uses straps to press the runner down. Press Space or tap Jump: a take-off at 2.0 m/s lifts you 0.54 m, against 0.20 m on Earth.
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The suit room and thin air
Outside, the air averages 6.36 hPa, about 0.6% of sea level on Earth. Suits hang on suitports so the crew climbs in from inside. A pump returns most of the airlock air before the outer door opens. Turn Suit on off to see what the bare air would do.
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Plants under red and blue light
Chlorophyll takes up red and blue light best, so plant lamps are mostly red and blue LEDs. Astronauts ate red romaine lettuce grown on the ISS in 2015, and the EDEN ISS greenhouse in Antarctica grew 268 kg of food on 12.5 m² in 2018.
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Solar panels in weaker sunlight
At its average distance Mars gets 586 W/m², 43% of what reaches Earth. The Season slider moves Mars along its orbit: near perihelion (Ls 251°) the sunlight is about 45% stronger than near aphelion. The readout adds up one sol of sunlight for your panels.
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A dust storm
Dust in the air is measured as optical depth, τ. In June 2018 it reached an estimated τ of 10.8 at Opportunity, and the rover never woke again. Here τ is set to 5: try the first task and add panels until a whole sol covers the base.
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Making oxygen from the air
Mars air is 95% carbon dioxide. MOXIE, a test unit about the size of a microwave oven on Perseverance, made oxygen 16 times between 2021 and 2023: 122 g in all, at up to 12 g an hour. A crew of four breathes about 3.4 kg in a sol.
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Ice under the plains
Radar on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found a buried ice deposit in Utopia Planitia that holds about as much water as Lake Superior, and HiRISE found cliffs where ice shows a metre or two down. Water means drink, shielding and fuel.
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The rover garage
A crew rover concept with suitports, an open rover, and wheels: Curiosity's thin aluminium wheels have been torn by sharp rocks since 2013, and NASA Glenn's spring tire of shape-memory wire bends and springs back.
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Driving at real rover speeds
You are in the base rover. The Rover speed slider sets a real top speed: Curiosity drives at about 4 cm a second, Sojourner at 1 cm. At Curiosity's pace, crossing this 40 m yard takes more than 15 minutes. The crew rover concept is set to 10 km/h.
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The landing pad
Rocket exhaust throws soil and stones a long way: Apollo 12 pitted Surveyor 3 from 163 m. Plans put pads far from the habitat behind berms. This pad is brought closer for the walk. The lander is generic, not any company's ship.
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Every lander and rover, full size
14 models stand in two rows with their plaques, from Mars 3 in 1971 to Zhurong in 2021. Open the Field guide to read each one's landing date, place and mass, or Tasks to find the first soft landing.
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Ingenuity's first flights
The 1.8 kg helicopter first flew on 19 April 2021. Markers on the ground show its first flights at the true distances: out 50 m, out 133 m, and 129 m the other way to Airfield B. Walk them in order for a task.
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Blueberries and layered rock
At the outlook, small grey balls of hematite lie on the ground like the ones Opportunity found at Meridiani. They formed in water. Beyond them stand layered rock, dark dunes and a dust devil wandering across the plain.
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Blue sunset and a 3.3 km horizon
Fine dust sends blue light forward, close to the direction of the Sun, so a blue glow gathers round the setting Sun while the rest of the sky turns brown. The ground curves out of sight about 3.3 km away, against 4.5 km for the same eye on Earth.
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Earth in the evening sky
With Earth 172 million km away, it stands about 41° from the Sun and shows as a blue point after sunset. A message from the dish takes 3.0 minutes at the closest and 22.3 at the farthest. Turn on Today's distance to use the real distance now.

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