Seeking Hermitage: From Earthships to Terraforming Mars
New Grid, Off Grid, No Grid - a Journey, Part 3
“To prepare Venus for comfortable human habitation, it is necessary to lower the surface temperature and increase the partial pressure of molecular oxygen…Hopefully, by that time we will know with more certainty whether to send a paleobotanist, a mineralogist, a petroleum geologist, or a deep-sea diver.” (Excerpts of The Planet Venus, by Carl Sagan in Science Magazine, Vol. 133, Issue 3456 [June, 1961]
…and again from Dr. Sagan, this time in his book Pale Blue Dot [Random House, 1994]): "Here's the fatal flaw: In 1961, I thought the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus was a few bars ... We now know it to be 90 bars, so if the scheme worked, the result would be a surface buried in hundreds of meters of fine graphite, and an atmosphere made of 65 bars of almost pure molecular oxygen. Whether we would first implode under the atmospheric pressure or spontaneously burst into flames in all that oxygen an open question."
When seeking shelter from the troubles of life as we know it, preliminary research can save a good deal of trouble, and quite possibly the lives of a few science-minded explorers. The above excerpts from the visionary (though ultimately research-driven) planetary scientist Dr. Carl Sagan seem like a good place to begin part 3 of this consideration of transmission grids and stand-alone power systems. A defining feature of human survival through past climate changes and habitat over-exploitation has been mobility, with some individuals carrying with them enough knowledge and technology to adapt to their new surroundings, usually with a fair amount of attempting to adapt surroundings to suit the colonists’ needs and expectations. The dry landscapes I’ve explored and called home for most of a lifetime are pocked with the detritus of human occupation — from caches of chipped stone and middens that contain bits of bone, pottery and woven fibers, all the way to abandoned irrigation schemes, toxic mine tailings, broken machinery, and ammunition dumps.
On this landscape still deemed harsh enough to train astronauts for space exploration, the challenge of survival is great. Those who’ve stayed long-term tend to build shelters, whether for seasonal or year-around use formerly being determined by local access to water, food, heating fuels…
Some efforts have succeeded for centuries, while others quickly failed, but only in recent decades have humans gained wide access to centralized grids of power and supplies. Along with this interconnection has come a loss of habitats for hunting, gathering, growing — or for migrating into when drought strikes, rivers run dry, and wildfires raze human endeavours. For most of us, this has meant learning to cope with nearby neighbors as the landscape gains houses and loses opportunities for free-range living. Others have taken shelter in the fringes of forest and scrubland beyond electrical, water, and sewer lines — building structures that may (or may not) meet local building codes. In recent years, this phenomenon once reserved to the domain of trailblazers, homesteaders, mystics and misanthropes, spiced by the novelty of a few utopian communities, has become a burgeoning real estate after-market, always on the lookout for well-heeled seekers of hermitage. Yes, dear readers, I’m cruising online ads for Earthships For Sale, and finding one on the market seeking a discerning buyer with a penchant for a self-sustaining domicile, along with a cool $950,000. Hm-m-m…
So, just what is an Earthship, anyway? The name traces to a young architecture school graduate named Michael Reynolds, who landed in northern New Mexico about the time Amory Lovins was developing his own power grid-challenging ideas. Reynolds took passive-energy housing another step in a direction long practiced by humans in the time before standardized building products and codes, when new arrivals would dismantle abandoned structures for re-use to suit their needs. Reynolds built with recycled trash (bottles, cans, used tires, etc.), packed full of earth and wired together into bricks, mortared over to form walls. Many houses were dug into the earth, a technique pioneered in the region by ancestors to the cliff-house builders who lived in the structure I depicted above. Reynolds’ ideal was to design houses that were affordable, off the grid, self supporting — net zero energy before zero energy was a catchphrase (and a U. S. Department of Energy-sponsored program).
There were, however, a few problems along the way. The Earthships were experimental, so some roofs leaked, some had heating problems. There were lawsuits. Judgements. Licensing censures. Then, a career rebound as net zero energy and recycling popularity rose along with energy costs. Architect Michael Reynolds has become somewhat of an icon in the green housing movement, and earthship-style houses have been built in multiple U. S. states, with some 50 years worth of design improvements to vouch for them. An organization he founded, Earthship Biotecture offers classes and workshops in design and construction, in northern New Mexico or online.
Now comes the earthship housing aftermarket — here’s another, for an even more discerning buyer, The Phoenix at $1,500,000. Another at $1,495,000. Several more at $495,000 to $895,000 — you get the idea. Now, to be fair, I’ve been featuring some (but not the most) expensive earthship-style houses currently on the market. Here’s an owner-built one for $69,000, just outside of a small town in the desert southwest, but I’m not going to reveal any more details. As the ad states, this one is offered AS IS - no warrants stated or implied, so it’s likely best to buy with a plan to fix and upgrade as required, but it does fall in the affordable category. For those with a patch of secluded land, a limited budget, and now feeling inspired to recycle humanity’s flotsam into affordable housing, it seems like a good time to start collecting old tires, bottles and cans, plus a few friends with strong backs to help with the house-raising.
But if you’re feeling really adventurous, what about just starting over somewhere with plenty of room to roam — say, on a planet as yet unsullied by pandemics, commuter traffic, and other social ills — what about Mars? Long ago, it had water, before a thinning atmosphere dried and chilled the planet to its present state. Imagine reversing the process, as depicted in one of the videos below…
Well, there are still a few technical challenges…
As Carl Sagan noted with Venus, Mars has serious pressure and temperature issues, albeit the opposite of Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. By NASA’s estimates, even converting all Martian ice caps, minerals and soil to carbon dioxide (a human predilection currently roiling Earth’s climate) would only provide a small fraction of the atmospheric pressure needed for earth-like life forms to survive. That would be life forms such as ourselves, so while collecting flotsam to build a dream home here on earth, it would be good to ponder another question Dr. Sagan posed in his late life homage to our home planet, Pale Blue Dot [Random House, 1994], “Can we, who have made such a mess of this world, be entrusted with others?”
Up next, the first installment of a recurring (mostly) pictorial feature for Water into Stone — Road Trip Pics! Until then, take care of yourself and help somebody out along the way. Blue skies and green lights! -B.
For another look at just what terraforming a planet might require, here’s another view from The Planetary Society.
I hope in a way that we never terraform Mars. A whole planet of lovely empty desert! I used to think about building a hermitage home in another, more hospitable drylands. But equally empty. That was the short grass prairies of western Kansas and Nebraska. I was going to dig it into the side of a landrise and make it tornado proof! A land of huge skies, distant clouds and wonderful winds. Heaven!