How Mars Made “Living off the Land” Credible
How Mars Made “Living off the Land” Credible
In Document 616, renewed interest in using Martian resources emerged during the period after Mariner 9 and the Viking missions, when NASA was largely focused on the Space Shuttle and relatively little crewed-Mars planning was under way. Mariner 9 revealed ancient, finely branched channels that suggested Mars had once possessed a denser, warmer atmosphere, while Viking showed that Mars had “abundant resources that might be used to explore it” and eventually provided the in-situ data needed for serious consideration of local resource use.[1][2][3][4]
The section calls this approach In-Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU: using local resources to assist exploration. “Living off the land” is presented as essentially synonymous with ISRU, but as a subject of mission studies rather than an operational capability.[5]
- The first formal NASA step named is the Working Group on Extraterrestrial Resources (WGER), established in 1962. It initially studied lunar resources because lunar data were more available and lunar use appeared more immediately relevant during Apollo.[6]
- The first identified Mars application is the UMPIRE study, dated 1963-1964. It recommended ISRU for establishing and maintaining a Mars base during long, conjunction-class surface stays, making those stays more cost-effective than short excursions while acknowledging that more information about Martian resources was still needed.[7]
- The burden being addressed was the mass and expense of transporting consumables or propellants from Earth. In the 1960s, the emphasis was mainly on life-support consumables; by the 1980s, the focus had shifted toward producing propellant locally.[8]
- Document 616 does not name individual authors for the earliest ISRU papers. Instead, it identifies the WGER, the UMPIRE study, and NASA Marshall, whose UMPIRE summary report argued that resource information from probes or crewed flyby or orbiter reconnaissance could make a Mars base possible.[9]
Thus, the section describes ISRU as an idea dating from the 1960s and 1970s that re-emerged after Mariner 9 and Viking: first as a way to reduce the need to bring life-support supplies from Earth, and later as a way to reduce the propellant burden of longer Mars missions. It notes that ISRU became especially prominent in Mars planning during the 1990s, without presenting it as already operational.[10]
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