If you have the heart of a homesteader and can endure a seven-month journey inside a container the size of a minivan, perhaps you will be among the first settlers of one of humanity’s next frontiers: Mars. You may even find a comfy home — made with locally produced red brick, metal and fiberglass — waiting for you on the red planet, thanks to scientists and engineers, many of them from MIT, who are looking into the challenges of building homes on Mars. But Martian settlers will not want to live stuffed inside small, sterile-looking modular outposts for very long periods, said Mark Homnick, co-founder of the recently formed group at MIT, the Mars Homestead Project.
