Building a mighty space base in Take On Mars

Andy Kelly Dec 30, 2015

The Meridiani Planum is a vast, empty desert of volcanic basalt, and my home for the foreseeable future. There was an accident—I remember a storm, an explosion, and not much else—and now I’m alone. NASA thinks I’m dead, the rest of my team are on their way home, and the next mission to Mars is five years away. I’m pretty much fucked.

The first thing I hear when I wake is beep, beep, beep. A red light is flashing in my helmet, warning me that I have three minutes of oxygen left. I struggle to my feet and scan the horizon. Nothing. I’m surrounded by a red, flat plain littered with rocks and craters. Then I spot something in the distance: a curiously geometrical shape silhouetted against the dusky pink of the Martian sky.

The lander! The craft we touched down in, which is stocked with supplies including sweet, precious, life-giving air. It’s far away, but I might just make it. Beep, beep, beep. I have to run in bursts, because the exertion of a prolonged sprint will make me take deep, wasteful breaths. I reach the lander and slam the button that opens the cargo bay. It’s achingly, painfully slow. The beeping intensifies. Thirty seconds left.

The door slides open and I dash inside, taking the elevator to the pressurised safety of the crew quarters. Tearing off my helmet, I collapse in an exhausted heap. I made it! But the elation quickly fades when I remember that I’m still alone on a hostile planet with limited food and water, no way to communicate with Earth, and five years to kill. Not the best situation I’ve ever been in.

I could live here in the lander, I suppose. It has beds, food, water. But when the supplies run out—there’s about a month’s worth in the hold—I’ll either starve or die of thirst. I need space to grow my own food and somewhere more comfortable to live.

I venture outside again. Located just south of the equator, the Meridiani Planum is scattered with a crystalline mineral called hematite: evidence that hot springs may have bubbled here millions of years ago. Now it’s a wasteland, pockmarked with craters. In the distance, jutting incongruously out of the emptiness, is a strange ridge formation. Curiosity gets the better of me.

The lander is equipped with a scouting buggy—a glorified go-kart, really—which I drive towards the ridge. It’s incredibly slow, only marginally faster than walking. When I reach the rock formation, I realise it’s the lip of an immense crater: the Victoria crater to be precise. Half a mile wide and seventy metres deep, it’s a colossal thing, but not much use to me. I’m gazing across it, listening to the eerie, lonely howl of the wind, when a message flashes up on my HUD: Solar event incoming.

I make it back with seconds to spare and wait for the storm to pass. I decide that’s enough exploring for me.

Mars is routinely pounded by solar storms. If I get caught in one, even with a suit on, I’ll receive a lethal dose of radiation. And according to the data on my HUD, one is on its way. I jump back in the buggy and start trundling back to the lander, which suddenly looks impossibly far away. It’s another close call, but I make it back with seconds to spare and wait for the storm to pass. I decide that’s enough exploring for me. I’ve got plenty of problems to deal with as it is.

I eat a freeze-dried steak for dinner and sleep on a small cot bed in the lander to escape the chill of the Martian night. Near the equator, during the day, temperatures on Mars can reach a balmy 20 degrees; but at night they drop as low as -70. When the sun rises, I decide to initiate phase one of Operation Don’t Die: building myself somewhere to live. I unpack the enormous 3D printer stored in the cargo bay and assemble it outside.

What follows is a gruelling three hours of printing out corners, walls, floors and other parts, then painstakingly slotting them together, piece by piece, to create my new home. It’s a slow, laborious process that would have been a lot easier if my team hadn’t flown back to Earth and left me here to die. I begin by driving metal platforms—the foundations of the building—into the Martian soil. Then I clip on floors, walls, windows, power points, and, finally, the roof. To speed things up I print out two additional 3D printers and make sure they’re constantly churning out parts as I build.

Before I snap on the last few bits of wall, I print out everything I need for the interior: a bed, a couch, storage crates, a toilet, a table to work on, two hydroponic stations, and a water dispenser. Then I toss them through the gap in the wall and seal it up. The last step is the airlock, which I’ll need to keep the room pressurised. I build a small corridor, equip it with two suit holders, and install a pair of heavy airlock doors. Done. I step inside, close the airlock, and hold my breath. Did it work? ‘EXT. SAFE’ blinks on the HUD in reassuring green text, indicating that I can safely remove my suit. I did it!

It’s not much, but it’s a vast improvement over the lander. If I had help I could have built a base with multiple rooms, but for now this will have to serve as both my living quarters and my science lab. I can easily expand later. I arrange the furniture and equipment and end up with a pretty swish-looking pad. I move some of the freeze-dried meals, emergency oxygen tanks, and backup suits from the lander to the hab and watch a gorgeous Martian sunset as I eat dinner. As another solar storm rages outside, I settle in for the night. Tomorrow I can start to sort out the water situation.

Mars may look dead, but the air and soil are rich with resources I can harvest to keep myself alive. First, water. I print out a topsoil extractor, hook it up to a solar panel, and plug in two resource canisters. Then I build a refinery while I wait for the canisters to fill. The yield is low, but by processing the collected soil in the refinery I can extract fresh, drinkable water. I fill a few canisters and store them safely in the hab, plugging one into the water dispenser. I’ll make sure the topsoil extractor is running constantly to keep the water flowing. That’s one problem solved.

I still have a decent supply of freeze-dried meals, so I can wait a while before I have to think about growing food in this desolate place. In the meantime, I tackle a problem that’s been bugging me ever since I finished the hab. In the process of building it I accumulated a massive pile of junk. Mostly parts I printed out by mistake, including a third airlock door. I keep bumping into it as I walk around the site, and it looks messy, so it’s time to get rid of it. I refuse to live in in squalor.

I use the 3D printer to construct a cargo truck. It’s big and slow, but has a massive bed for storing and transporting stuff. I spend some time gathering all the bits of junk strewn around the base and load them on the back. Then I drive about half a mile away and unload it. I did consider throwing it in the Victoria crater, but I don’t think NASA would appreciate me using an area of scientific interest as a garbage dump. I return to base, and it looks much neater. Satisfied that I’ve had a productive day, I eat some steak—again—and retire for the evening.

When I wake up, a dust storm is raging outside, but it doesn’t look too severe. One of the supply crates in the lander has bags of potato seeds, so I strap my suit on, brace myself, and step outside. Jogging over to the lander I pick up the seeds, grabbing a canister of freshly-harvested topsoil on the way back. The storm has covered my solar panels in dust, which I’ll have to clean later. Back in the safety of the hab, I plug the soil can into one of my hydroponics stations, along with a can of water, and plant the seeds.

It’s not long before five healthy potato plants spring up. Just so you know, Bowie: there is life on Mars.

I spend the next few days harvesting resources, clearing up junk, and tending to my potato plants. I expand the hab with a small room to put the toilet in, because having it inches from my bed just feels wrong. I’m beginning to adjust to life on Mars, despite the solitude. I keep myself sane through routine, occasionally going for a slow drive around the Victoria crater to entertain myself.

Before long I have my first crop of potatoes. I pick some to eat, and save the rest for replanting. It’s taken a while, but I’m finally self-sufficient. I have the means to reliably produce water, food, oxygen, and power. It won’t be the easiest five years, but I should be able to get through them.

I’ll keep expanding the hab in the coming years, with more hydroponics stations, more resource extractors, and more rooms. But for now I have everything I need to survive. Who knows, maybe NASA will realise I’m still alive and mount a rescue mission? Then I might only be here for two years—the length of a journey to Mars—instead of five. Either way, I’ve accepted my fate. I’m going to be here for a very long time, so I might as well get comfortable. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some potatoes to harvest.

About the Author
Andy Kelly

Andy grew up with PC games, losing countless hours of his youth to Quake and Baldur’s Gate. Today his love for PC gaming is just as strong, and now he loses countless hours of his adult life to them. He loves horror, RPGs, sims, anything set in space, anything set in rainy cyberpunk cities, adventure games, and you.

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