Engineering the energy supply for a Martian colony

Mars exploration has a history of more than half a century and has been the subject of numerous expeditions over the past nearly 70 years. Much of this exploration has been motivated by the idea of colonizing the planet. Providing energy to a Martian colony is a challenging task due to the challenging conditions and the need for special equipment. There are a number of options for supplying energy to a colony, with nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind all being explored. Solar and nuclear energy have the greatest potential, and our research is looking at how these energy sources could power the colony.In our research, we calculated the energy use of a potential Martian colony and combined these to assess the potential for generating the demand we estimated. We have calculated the oxygen demand and its production, and we have investigated the theoretical possibility of a new process for waste management to produce recycled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene for 3D printing. We have also calculated the gamma irradiation dose of Martian samples and the energy requirements of the equipment needed to produce it, the extraction of water and its application in agriculture. We also evaluated the potential of nuclear reactors and solar energy. Our calculations provide a good basis for a full simulation of the energy system of a Martian colony.