Sustaining the existence of a human settlement in an extra-terrestrial environment will require the development of an infrastructure with high level of resilience. The external envelope and the structural system except forming of habitable volume should also provide a safe shelter from the extreme environment outside and the associated extreme loads: seismic activity, winds, dust storms, anthropogenic accidental loads. However, despite theoretically possible, the design of a structure to resist almost any foreseeable extreme load it is not practically possible solution. In the case of permanent planetary bases, the demand for high structural resistance should be in balance with restrains associated with the possible construction techniques and the limitations of supply of materials. Therefore it is more realistic to use graded approach specifying different level of required structural resistance for different zones of the planetary bases, eg. life support systems, shelters for the inhabitants, emergency control systems, etc. There is a number of examples on the Earth for facilities designed for high level of resilience to abnormal natural and anthropogenic loads, as nuclear power plants, offshore oil platforms and LNG tanks probably the most appropriate to mention. The design of these facilities should balance between the requirements for high structural resistance and construction and financial restrains. Therefore graded approach is adopted specifying structural systems with different levels of safety significance and designed for different levels of external and internal loads from natural and anthropogenic origin. The current paper provides a high level review of the main concepts, principles and approaches used for the design of hazardous facilities on Earth and in particular in the design of nuclear facilities and convert those in structural design principles and criteria for design of planetary bases.
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