[nickparker]

Casey Handmer argues [0] that The best solution is an “air mattress” structure where anchor cables are spaced throughout the structure to resist the pressure load.

The anchor cables can scale linearly with area just like the pressure does, while a perimeter wall anchor scales with radius and therefore sets a limit on enclosure size.

The cable anchor approach also lets you build arbitrarily high ceilings, like kilometers up hypothetically.

I really wish someone would build one of these on Earth. It would actually be easier because you’d just set the pressure high enough to resist wind loads. You could make an incredibly gigantic greenhouse in some otherwise inhospitable climate

[0]: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/domes-are-very...

[gpm]

> I really wish someone would build one of these on Earth. It would actually be easier because you’d just set the pressure high enough to resist wind loads. You could make an incredibly gigantic greenhouse in some otherwise inhospitable climate

This would require 2atm pressure (to be equivalent to mars) - how well do humans react to that sort of pressure for long periods of time?

[DarthGhandi]

Humans do remarkably well at high pressures. 2 atm pressure is the equivalent of being 10m underwater.

If you go a lot higher you run into some issues and need to modify the gas composition/ratio, this has been thoroughly studied for diving purposes.