現地資源利用を想定した火星定住候補地の検討

抄録

In recent years, space agencies including NASA, academia, non-profit organizations, and private companies have been considering potential human settlement sites on Mars. The First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars was conducted in the United States in 2015. At the workshop, 47 teams analyzed separate exploration zones under the same rubric and criteria to identify potential landing sites, areas of scientific interest, and areas of resource interest. Most of the studies focused primarily on scientific exploration, and did not analyze from a perspective of settlement. In this paper, Mars Society Japan compared the same 47 exploration sites from four main perspectives: "local water resource usage," "atmospheric thickness corresponding to altitude," and "latitudes with sufficient sunlight for agriculture," to determine settlements capable of accommodating up to 10,000 people. In total, four locations were selected as candidates. Two of the locations coincided with potential settlement sites selected by SpaceX for city construction.