NASA Workshop Wish List of First Human Outpost Martian Landing Sites

Summary: NASA workshop wish list of first human outpost Martian landing sites has 45 possibilities, according to presentations at Houston's LPI Oct. 27 to 30.

Selecting the ideal Martian site for the first human explorers to land, live, and work safely is part of NASA's Mars programs and includes the design and construction of safe habitats ~ exploration imagery of artist's 1989 illustration of Mars Outpost for 7 astronauts: Mark Dowman/John Frassanito and Associates, for NASA/Johnson Space Center Office of Exploration, Public Domain, via NASA Mars Exploration

NASA’s “First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars,” held Oct. 27 to 30 at Houston’s Lunar and Planetary Institute, opens the dialogue on human presence on Mars with a wish list of possible first human outpost Martian landing sites.

The 45 first human outpost Martian landing sites proposed by the workshop’s participants are located in the Red Planet’s equatorial and middle latitudes stretching from 50 degrees North to 50 degrees South. With NASA’s expectation of extreme mobility by Mars’s first on-site human explorers, outposts are envisioned as lying within an Exploration Zone featuring terrain with high scientific research value and providing natural resources supportive of human habitation. NASA’s Exploration Zone model assumes perimeters established by a radius of approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the outpost.

NASA’s Mars-focused missions pinpoint the 2030s as the projected decade for transporting the first human explorers to Mars.

NASA’s pre-workshop newsletter of Oct. 24, 2015, notes the relevance of participants’ proposed first human outpost Martin landing sites to NASA’s Mars Program: “The sites represent a wide diversity of the Red Planet’s geology, including the ancient Noachian, Hesperian volcanics, sedimentary deltas, large faults that may be tapped into the deep interior, the mid-latitude glacial belts, and many other important features. Extant and extinct life astrobiology objectives are both clearly represented in the abundance of sites. There is also an excellent variety of candidate water-ISRU [in-situ resource utilization] targets including the potential for ice and hydrated minerals.”

As a historic place in the history of the solar system, Chryse Planitia (Greek: “Golden Plain”) offers a symbolic return to the site of the first successful spacecraft landing on Mars, effected by Viking 1 on July 20, 1976, at 11:53:06 Coordinated Universal Time. Repurposing Chryse Planitia as the first human outpost benefits from the well-studied site’s topography as a smooth, depositional volcanic plain, with evidence of three significant outflow channel systems, in Mars’s northern equatorial region. Repurposing also builds on on-site data transmitted for just under 6 years 4 months by Viking 1 until the lander’s untimely loss of contact Nov. 11, 1982, due to a faulty command inadvertently issued by ground command.

Suggested as another familiar, historic place, equatorial Gale Crater currently welcomes determinedly inquisitive investigations conducted by Curiosity, the car-sized robotic rover making headlines ever since landing in northern Gale Crater’s Aeolis Palus at 05:17 Coordinated Universal Time on Aug. 6, 2012. A recent announcement by NASA, just prior to a report published on Oct. 9 by the Mars Science Laboratory team, reveals Gale Crater as the site of an ancient lake.

Wind-sculpted landforms known as yardangs are associated on Mars with the equatorial Medusae Fossae Formation, a large geologic unit formed from fine, volcanic ash deposits. As advantageous sources of building materials, yardangs in such proposed first human outpost landing sites as Apollonaris Sulci and Gale Crater could easily yield shelters similar to Earth’s historical underground cities carved from volcanic ash fall deposits, known as tuff, in Cappadocia, in Turkey’s Central Anatolia Region.
The workshop purposes to "identify and discuss candidate locations where humans could land, live and work on the Martian surface." The workshop's creation of the impressive list of 45 proposed sites marks a starting point in the intensive, intricate site selection process that characterizes missions, yielding such ideal finalists as Gale Crater for Curiosity’s ongoing search for signs of past and present Martian life.

On Oct. 27, the first day of the workshop, John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for science, said: “This is the beginning of the conversation. We shouldn’t have the expectation that we will, by chance at this event, find the first landing site.”

Martian Map of Exploration Zones: Lindsay Hays/Mars Program Office, Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

first human outpost Martian landing site: Mark Dowman/John Frassanito and Associates, for NASA/Johnson Space Center Office of Exploration, Public Domain, via NASA Mars Exploration @ http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=6198

Martian map of exploration zones: Lindsay Hays/Mars Program Office, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/exploration-zone-map-v10.pdf

For further information:

Bussey, Ben, and Richard Davis. "NASA First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars Newsletter." Oct. 24, 2015.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/first-landing-site-newsletter-v6-10242015a.pdf

David, Leonard. "Where Will the 1st Astronauts on Mars Land?" Space.com > Spaceflight. Nov. 17, 2015.
Available @ http://www.space.com/31143-manned-mars-landing-sites-workshop.html

Gray, Richard. "Is this where the first humans will set foot on Mars? Icy Deuteronilus Mensae could be home to astronauts on the red planet." Daily Mail > Science. Oct. 30, 2015.
Available @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3296817/Is-humans-set-foot-MARS-Icy-Deuteronilus-Mensae-proposed-home-astronauts-Red-Planet.html

Lakdawalla, Emily. "A walk among the mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae." The Planetary Society > Blogs. April 19, 2013.
Available @ http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/04191126-a-walk-among-the-mesas.html?

"Mars abstracts in order of presentation: First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars." NASA.
Available @ http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/mars-c-abstracts_in_order_of_presentation10242015_0.pdf

NASA JPL @NASAJPL. "Where on Mars will the first footprints be? #JourneytoMars workshop Oct 27-30. Watch live." Twitter. Oct. 27, 2015.
Available @ https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/659088770642284544

okrajoe. "Finding Human Landing Sites on Mars." YouTube. July 10, 2015.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9scjxlkL_HY

Talbert, Tricia, ed. "NASA Seeks Ideas for Where on Mars the Next Giant Leap Could Take Place." NASA Mars Exploration > News > Feature. June 25, 2015.
Available @ http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1839