AIRLOCK
THE IDEA
The pressure on Mars is less than 1% of Earth's sea-level pressure. The minimum pressure humans can survive at is about 50% of Earth's sea-level pressure, and many who are not used to such pressures can develop debilitating symptoms. Therefore, there will always be a pressure difference between the outside environment of Mars, and the human environment inside a colony. In order to exit the colony, humans will not only require a spacesuit, but also an airlock, a structure with two doors and an intermediate room between them that would connect the bring the pressure inside down to 1%, or back up to human habitation levels, depending on if you’re entering or leaving. Our team undertook the effort to not only develop our own collapsible full-size airlock system (a novel concept), but also to make a cross-Canada competition for other universities to come up with their own airlock designs.
The Competition
As we were running the competition, we did not enter our airlock design into consideration. Our airlock consisted of two aluminum doors, connected by a tube of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene ropes and multilayered metallocene polyethylene membrane. In total, the design weighs 336 kg and its four-meter-long body can collapse to 0.5 meters.
In May 2019, the first phase of the competition took place at UBC. The University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Regina, and the Memorial University of Newfoundland sent representatives to present their plans for an expandable airlock.
In October 2021, the second phase of the competition was held, again at UBC. Several teams arrived after having fully realised their designs of an expandable airlock. The team from Celestial Laboratories at the University of Regina won the competition, with a close second by WatLock from the University of Waterloo.
Gallery
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