The Nüwa project – a Martian city that can sustain its own growth
Is it possible to build a human settlement that can sustain its own growth? With the sight put into developing a long term and sustainable presence of human activities in space, a very fundamental question that needs to be addressed is whether a human settlement can be developed and self-sustain on another planet. Despite there seems to be no physical barriers to achieve it, it is unclear if all the material cycles and be closed to the required level and if the amount of workload the average human should endure is manageable.
To start a conversation on this topic, The Sustainable Offworld Network (SONet) performed a design exercise to answer a call along these lines issued by the Mars Society. We proceeded in an engineering design way listing functions, identifying requirements, and drafting solutions to cover both technical and socio-economic aspects in a multi-disciplinary collaboration. I will present you a summary of the findings, the 'costs' in terms of materials and resources, and discuss its feasibility with our current technological level.