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By PETER ZUCKERMAN
.c The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A little bit of duckweed and some inflatable houses could help turn the caves of Mars into a home for any future human visitors to the red planet. That's one of the topics on the agenda of a conference on Mars being held in Eugene this weekend.

The Martian caves would protect humans from radiation and the severe weather, and may hold minerals, water and ice the colonists could use for life support.

``They're a safe place on a dangerous planet, an ideal refuge for research,'' said Penelope Boston, lead investigator for ``The Caves of Mars,'' a series of experiments partly funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.

``Caves can serve as the foundation to advance our civilization on Mars,'' said Boston, who also is director of cave studies at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Boston and other researchers attending the Mars Society convention are conducting experiments in caves on earth to develop models for homes, farms and research labs on Mars.

The project began with an experiment to see whether the air on Mars could be modified into something people can breathe. The Martian atmosphere is very thin but has a higher concentration of argon than Earth.

A mixture of oxygen, argon and other gases was pumped into a container holding two crickets. The insects didn't seem to be affected by the processed air. Similar tests were done on mice in a sealed cage, and the argon again did not appear to have any short-term health effects.

Still, scientists can't be sure until they try the test on humans.

For a later experiment, scientists created a habitat for two mice in a volcanic lava tube in central Oregon - an environment that resembles the caves researchers expect to find on Mars.

Trays filled with water were wedged between the walls of the mouse habitat. Two aquatic plants - duckweed and water fern - floated on top of the water like pieces of confetti. Fluorescent lights powered by a solar panel outside the cave provided light for plant growth.

The mice exhaled carbon dioxide, which the plants turned back into oxygen. After two days in the cave, the mice came out healthy but short of breath because the plants didn't produce enough oxygen, said Gus Frederick, one of the experiment's designers.

A follow-up experiment, scheduled for September, will include more plants and a mechanism to control humidity. The researchers may fill the mouse habitat with a gas mixture similar to the one Mars colonists would breathe, and in later trials the mice will eat duckweed.

Frederick calls duckweed the ideal Martian food. The plant has more protein per gram than soybeans and can double its mass in a day.

Although the mouse trials aren't finished, researchers have designed a larger biosphere for humans that should be completed by November, made out of the same kind of plastic and nylon material used for hot air balloons, Boston said.

Mars colonists would inflate it in the middle of a cave. An airlock would let people go in and out of the habitat, and solar panels outside the cave would create power.

Researchers plan to test it in November at the Lost Cave in the Carlsbad region of New Mexico. After working out the kinks, they plan to conduct more extensive tests on the biosphere at a nearby cave called HM that's filled with unbreathable air. Researchers will protect themselves with space suits.

``Mars is no longer a point in the sky,'' Boston said. ``It's a place. The whole solar system is beckoning to us.''

On the Net:

The Mars Society: http//:www.marssociety.org


 
08/16/03 20:08 EDT
   

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