Researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University are working to figure out what it would take for us to call the Red Planet home. The university’s department of construction management is looking into the type of energy that would be the most effective, and the best types of buildings. We’ve mapped the entire Earth. Now, space is the final frontier, with NASA working to send astronauts to Mars by the year 2030. Researchers at FGCU are working to figure out one big question. Once we get there, will we actually be able to live there? Dr. Hashem Izadi Moud, an assistant professor at FGCU said, “Solar energy is our best bet to actually start construction processes and building houses on the moon or Mars.” Izadi Moud and Dr. Craig Capano, Chairperson/Professor at FGCU’s U.A. Whitaker College of Engineering, will let other scientists figure out how we’ll breathe, eat, drink and stay warm. Their job – shelter. “We take it for granted when you have a bulldozer or a backhoe or an excavator digging a hole,” Dr. Capano explained. “We don’t think about the energy requirements to do that. But it’s pretty extensive.” On Earth, we depend mostly on fossil fuels, which, as far as we know, are non-existent on Mars, but the sun is universal. Dr. Capano added. “It’s abundant and free. So we looked at some comparisons. We did some analysis, ran the numbers, and that seemed to be the most economical if we used typical machinery to power that.” Dr. Izadi Moud said we could either build homes in sections on Earth and put them together on Mars – or send robots. All this planning for where no man has ever gone before. FGCU researchers will present their findings on what they call “Energy Life in Extra-Terrestrial Construction Projects” in April at the Air & Space Conference in Seattle.