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Astronauts train to scale a Mars volcano at an analogue site in France. Lava tubes that crisscross the Martian surface might provide sanctuaries for the first human explorers on the Red Planet. (Photo by Francis DEMANGE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images As SpaceX races to test and perfect the Starship super-capsules slated to speed the first astronauts to Mars, scientists are floating a sensational venue for the Martian base camp: inside an inactive volcano transformed into a sanctuary for explorers. Unlike the Earth, whose massive magnetic field protects life and DNA against high-energy cosmic particles shot off by exploding stars, or protons blasted out by the Sun, Mars is sporadically pelted by these celestial bullets, which could threaten any life forms transplanted onto its orange-red dunes. But now European and American scientists are exploring whether the first human Martians could find refuge via dormant volcanos scattered across the Red Planet, inside lava tubes that criss-cross the Mars underground. As lava tubes are sighted by European Space Agency and NASA orbiters circling the planet, leading-edge experts in space robotics have created an interlinked team of robots that can be lofted to Mars to reconnoiter and map the most promising basaltic caverns before the first astronauts ever touch down. Parallel volcanic eruptions across the once-twin planets likely created comparable lava tunnels on Earth and on Mars, otherworldly grottoes that can be surveyed by highly autonomous robots, says Carlos Jesus Pérez-del-Pulgar, a vanguard space robotics researcher at the University of Malaga, on the southern Spanish seacoast. Due to the risks of exploring volcanic underworlds, especially on another planet, he says, robotic advance scouts can spearhead these expeditions before their human allies arrive. Pérez-del-Pulgar’s contingent of space roboticists, he tells me in an interview, recently tested a mission concept that could pave…

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Filed under: News - @ September 10, 2025 1:26 am