Suitability Analysis for a Colony on Mars

Ross Hattel and Byron Clayton

By Ross Hattel GIS 4850

Professor ParrDecember 11, 2017

The concept of living on Mars has captured the imagination of people for many decades. Recently, there

has been more discussion about the feasibility of human beings actually traveling to Mars. Some of this discussion

has led to some difficult truths about the reality of such a task. The following project takes a different approach

and assumes a suitability model for a future where these difficulties have been overcome. With this approach, it is

assumed that humans have the ability to create water on Mars and possibly even create an atmosphere through

some ingenious technology. Following this line of reasoning, several criteria were considered for locating a site for

a colony on Mars, including areas with a slope of less than 10%, areas with low dust cover, areas with low albedo,

areas with a high thermal inertia at night, and areas near possible water collection areas. In addition, previous

landing sites of Mars rovers were compared with these areas and their closeness to ridge lines. These ridge lines

could be considered for the location of wind turbines for power generation. Another major purpose of the project

was to see how Mars data could be manipulated in Arcmaps.

All of the data was collected from various websites online using google search. The dust cover, digital

elevation model, and albedo data was found on an Arizona State University website,

(https://www.mars.asu.edu/data/). Data for thermal inertia came from a website operated by the planetary

science institute (https://sharad.psi.edu/inertia/) and the data for water collection areas and ridges came from the

USGS website, (https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3292/). The primary projection used for the analysis in Arcmaps was an

equidistant cylindrical projection tailored for Mars and the final layers were re-projected in a Robinson Mars

Projection.

The major functions used to carry out the process in Arcmaps included, reclassify, slope, buffer, distance,

georeference, raster calculator and extract by mask. The reclassify tool was used on the dust, slope, albedo, and

thermal inertia layers. The slope layer was created by running the slope function on the digital elevation model

mentioned previously. The dust layer was not properly georeferenced and ground control points had to be added

for it to align with the other layers. This reclassifying of each layer gave each raster different values ranging from

unsuitable to suitable. The raster calculator was used to add the slope, dust, albedo and thermal inertia layers

together using raster calculator. This gave a full map of areas ranging in value from unsuitable to most suitable

based on the corresponding criteria for each layer. Next, a buffer was added to the Hynek Valley networks as well

as troughs and then merged together. This buffer indicated areas for potential water collection. The merged buffer

was then used to extract the areas that it overlapped. This created a final layer illustrating zones of suitability. The

model can be seen below in the figure below (The following model includes some functions that were considered

but not used in the final products).

After running the model, a final map product was created to illustrate suitable sites for a Mars colony,

ranging from suitable to most suitable. All unsuitable sites were eliminated. When examining the final map, the

overall pattern shows a bias towards the equator and southern hemisphere in terms of suitable site locations.

There is also a large gap with no suitable areas on the left side in the higher elevations. This is most likely because

these are areas with a high amount of dust and albedo, which can be seen in the dust and albedo maps. The

extracted areas follow along the pathways of the Hynek valleys and troughs, where water could potentially be

collected. Many of the past landing sites are also located somewhat close to these sights, presumably because

these valley networks hold evidence for water once flowing on the surface of Mars. Measurements of distance

from the previous landing sites revealed that the Viking 1 landing site was the closest to a ridge line for the

establishment of wind turbines. When examining the final map, there are also multiple suitable sites within at least

100 km of the Viking 1 landing site. Multiple ridgelines can also be seen in all directions of this site in the map

below (lines in blue).

Viking 1 site distance to ridge lines:

Working with Mars data in Arcmaps was challenging at first, but once the projection and georeferencing

issues were sorted out, the major functions were carried out without significant problems. Establishing suitable

locations for a Mars colony was a success using this particular model and criteria. Some of the major issues came in

determining how important criteria such as albedo and thermal inertia actually are. Thermal inertia was difficult to

classify because the values ranged from 0 to 4,999 and the values were heavily skewed to the lower end, indicating

very few areas with high thermal inertia. Some of the drawbacks of the study of Mars data is that there is simply

not much depth in the data. There are many datasets, but a satellite operating millions of miles away can only go

so far in its depth of examination. In the future, it would be interesting to study the ways in which water behaves

in the troughs and valley networks identified for this project. For now, just getting humans to Mars seems to be

quite a tall order.

Final map of suitable sites:

Slope:

Dust:

Albedo:

Thermal Inertia:

Hynek Valley/Trough buffer overlay of raster calculation

Landing Sites and Ridges

References:

Mars Projection (Mars 2000) Data: https://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/pigwad/tutorials/planetarygis/arcmap_projections.htm

Mars Shapefile Data (USGS Geologic Map of Mars) Data: https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3292/

Mars Global Data Sets (ASU) Data: https://www.mars.asu.edu/data/

Elevation - Mars_MGS_MOLA_DEM_mosaic_global_463m--https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/details/Mars/GlobalSurveyor/MOLA/Mars_MGS_MOLA_ DEM_mosaic_global_463m/cub

Thermal Inertia - tinight_nbmap2007_simp0 -- https://sharad.psi.edu/inertia/

Dust - tes_ruffdust.png -- https://www.mars.asu.edu/data/tes_ruffdust/,

Albedo - Mars_MGS_TES_Albedo_mosaic_global_7410m__1_ -- https://www.mars.asu.edu/data/.

Hynek Valleys, ridges, and Troughs – SIM3292_MarsGlobalGeologicGIS_20M database -- https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3292/.

Maps arranged by Ross Hattel and Byron Clayton.