Three teams of “space engineers” from India have lost an international competition to design a city of the future on planet Mars in the year 2077.

High school teams from Team Force, Patiala, Amity International, Delhi, and Police DAV from Jalandhar were part of three different international “companies” competing in an International Space Settlement Design Competition at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre at Houston.

While Team Force was representing Asia at the July 21-23 finals as winners of the Asian regional competition, the two other teams from India were invited to join 14 schools from five continents.

The teams from India joined three different international companies — Dougeldyne Aerosystems, Rockdonnel and Vulture Aviation — but the bid to build “Bradburyom” on Mars went to the fourth firm Grumbo Aerospace.

Grumbo, with students from the US, Romania, Australia, and Uruguay, won as “they displayed much more creativity and innovation in their design than we saw from the other teams,” said Anita Gale, competition co-founder, who has worked on the US Space Shuttle Programme for 30 years.

When the school teams arrived in Houston on Saturday, they were transformed into four international firms with an order from the American Institute of Aero and Astronautics (AIAA) to design a second city on Mars with an existing population of 10,000, Gale said.

Working for 15 years in labs on Mars, scientists had found primitive forms of life like algae in underground aquifers. Introducing genetic material from earth, they are now developing uniquely Martian bacteria and plants that can better endure harsh environments, so went the brief from the “customer”.

They also had to contend with Martian dust called fines that gets into moving parts leading to breakdown of vehicles in three years and that of robots in just two years.

Despite futuristic themes, the firms were required to work within the bounds of anticipated technology and obey laws of physics. In another touch of realism, not only were they supposed to describe proposed structures and the people living in them, but also the cost and schedule estimates for construction.

Real managers from the industry and US space agency NASA served as chief executive officers to guide the firms that qualified for the competition by developing the best designs for designing a space settlement in the asteroid belt.