Mars Colony Prize · 2019

Eureka

A 1,000-person Mars settlement design — technical and economic model for The Mars Society’s colony competition.

Paper (PDF) Presentation (PDF) Portfolio

About the design

Competition entry

This is Kent’s design in the Mars Colony Prize from The Mars Society. The competition focuses not only on the technical aspects of setting up a settlement for 1,000 people, but the economic model as well.

Entries were limited to 20 pages — about three months to solve the problems and another month to fit the page limit. Several competitors and other experts shared ideas. Michel Lamontagne looked over the 2D Visio habitat drawings and produced the SketchUp renderings below. His model is a bit off the design, but close enough to give a sense of scale. Michel’s entry, Estepona, is linked for comparison.

The entry placed in the top ten of the competition. The top 21 entries were published on Amazon as Mars Colonies: Plans for Settling the Red Planet (Kindle / print).

Renders

Settlement views

Starship arriving at Eureka with domes and hangar — Starship arriving at Eureka. The long domes behind it are fuel storage, and the dome at right is a hangar for unloading cargo. It would actually be much further from the main city.

Higher angle overview of Eureka showing rings and roads — Higher angle, showing access roads. The central ring would be 440 meters in diameter and the central dome 100 meters in diameter.

Top x-ray view of dual rings and central domes — The two rings are centrifugal tracks to simulate Earth gravity. The domes in the middle are for agriculture and manufacturing.

Cross section of Eureka rings and central dome — Cross section showing tracks. They are actually set lower in the rings, to allow for buildings on top, but the angle is correct. The central dome would house a permaculture park.

Vehicle driving outside Eureka settlement — Driving outside Eureka. Yes, it is named after the town in the TV series about a decade ago.

Track cross section with railcars for housing — The ring tracks would actually be much lower in the shell, but the angle is correct. This would basically be a “railroad” with cube-shaped “railcars” on top that contain houses, offices, and labs. It’s actually much more complicated than that, but this is the short version.

Documents

PDFs are hosted with this site (not WordPress), so the archive can change independently.

Back to portfolio