There are about as many ideas for what a Martian habitat should look like as there are aspirant Martians. Most if not all are centralized, high-tech, institution-style affairs which assume that A) everyone will live together and B) everyone will belong to the same social unit, meaning essentially that everyone will have the same employer and obey one central authority. As my niece Wendy might put it, Eeeeeeuuwww!!

If that's the way things are going to be, then I don't want to move to Mars. I'll take my chances on Earth, where I can at least escape into the woods, thankyouverymuch. Mars means nothing to me except freedom, and the technology I use to live there must make me free, not dependent on some asshole bureaucrat (and *especially* not dependent on computers, ID cards,etc.!!).

Thus,the -----------------------.

The ----- takes into account all resources one can reasonably expect to find on Mars: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen (CHON) and iron, plus unlimited sunlight. I say "unlimited" because there are few enough cloudy days on Mars that the system should be able to store enough energy to get through them. Effectively the system can be built as if there would never be any off-days at all.

When creating the ----- I came to realize that many problems expected on Mars will be solved by it. Production of organic chemicals, for example, including plastics, is prettymuch automatic, as is he production of breathable air and food. Indeed a properly-run system may have too much of everything and have to dump the excess outside.