In mid 2017, Elon Musk laid out another of his in depth plans for how he will be landing humans on the surface of Mars by the mid 2020’s.  This is just one of many instances of the human spirit looking to inhabit the Red Planet.  From science fiction to reality, back to fiction, this endeavor is speculated to become somewhat common in many of our lifetimes.  But living on Mars is hard.  The nights are cold (so are the days), you can’t breathe, and the soil is toxic.  Overall the astronauts, visitors, and settlers who will be attempting stays on Mars will face some large challenges, but living on Mars is completely possible.  We live in space, we live underwater, we live in Antarctica, anything is possible.  

Between the public and the private sectors, the launch vehicles, deep space habitats, landing vehicles, long term habitats, space suits, and vehicles are being developed with extreme vigor, but one gap remains tucked between these various scales: the emergency shelter. With the number of complex factors in this new environment, the chances that something go wrong is quite high, and redundancy is key.  We will be filling this gap through an exploration into emergency shelters.  Starting with designing for our own climate difficulties in the Winter of Vermont, and eventually accounting for temperature, pressure, and air, we will eventually build up to full-scale, occupiable shelters.