Mars is ours! HD shots from "For All Mankind" season 5 trailer

In a teaser released in January Apple TV revealed that in season 5 of the alternate-history sci-fi TV series For All Mankind, the Happy Valley Base on Mars has grown into a thriving colony with thousands of residents. Two days ago the full trailer dropped, confirming that the friction between the Martian colonists and their former home, Earth, will be the central theme of season 5 - depicting the alternate year 2012.

For All Mankind is exploring the idea of never-ending space race if the Soviets had beaten the US in the race for the Moon, and the intention of the show is each season to jump about a decade further into the increasingly diverging reality of the show: in season 1, depicting alternate 1969 to 1974, both Soviets and US start building their separate bases near the lunar South pole; in season 2 (1983) both bases have been expanded and the superpowers compete for resources on the Lunar surface; in season 3 (1992 to 1995), Soviets and US are joined by a private company Helios and North Korea for a four-way race to be the first on Mars; in season 4 (2003) there is a sprawling international human base on Mars, but Martian rebels "steal" a large, lithium-rich asteroid, locking it in Martian orbit. Season 5 will start airing on March 27 on Apple TV.

Here you can watch the trailer and explore a set of high-resolution shots from it (downscaled from 4K UHD screens for better image quality):

In 9 years since the events in season 4 Happy Valley Base has grown into a real colony:

Dev Ayesa's Martian mansion:

SpaceX mass driver at Moonbase Alpha

A render of SpaceX mass driver at Moonbase Alpha to launch Moon-made AI satellites (data centers) into orbit. The render was included in Elon Musk's presentation yesterday at xAI All Hands meeting.

A lunar mass driver is a proposed electromagnetic launch system optimized for the Moon’s low gravity (1/6th Earth’s) and hard vacuum, consisting of a long, straight acceleration track (typically several to tens of kilometers) lined with sequentially fired superconducting coils or linear synchronous motors that propel a payload-carrying sled or bucket to lunar escape velocity (~2.38 km/s). The track is usually elevated on supports or aligned along a natural slope (e.g., crater rim) to achieve the desired trajectory. Payloads experience continuous acceleration (potentially 20-100 g for brief periods) without atmospheric drag or chemical propellant expenditure, enabling theoretically high throughput at far lower recurring cost than rockets. Practical challenges include the immense construction effort, precise alignment for orbital insertion, recoil management into the lunar surface, and the energy storage needed for rapid repetitive launches.

Artemis Base Camp by Pierre Carril, ESA

Concept renders for Artemis Base Camp by French scientific illustrator Pierre Carril, commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2019. The concept depicts Artemis Base Camp having dome-shaped human habitats covered with a layer of lunar regolith for radiation and impact protection, interconnected transparent geodesic domes housing hydroponic gardens for food and oxygen generation, and vast deployable solar arrays capturing near-constant sunlight at the lunar south polar region to power the outpost. Astronauts in ESA-marked spacesuits oversee robotic construction rovers building the lunar base.

NASA's international Artemis Base Camp, with ESA as a major partner, is a planned long-term outpost on the lunar south pole, envisioned as the cornerstone of sustainable human exploration under the Artemis program, with establishment targeted for the 2030s. Situated near craters like Shackleton for access to water ice in permanently shadowed regions and areas of near-continuous sunlight for solar power, the initial base would include a fixed Foundation Surface Habitat to accommodate up to four astronauts for stays of one to two months, a pressurized rover for extended surface traverses, an unpressurized Lunar Terrain Vehicle for mobility, power systems (including potential nuclear options), in-situ resource utilization for producing essentials like oxygen and propellant from lunar regolith, and supporting infrastructure for scientific research and technology testing to pave the way for Mars missions. As of early 2026, with Artemis II crewed preparations advancing toward a March launch, the concept remains NASA's blueprint for transitioning from short landings to permanent lunar presence.

A competing project – International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) – is being developed under Chinese leadership and targets the lunar south pole region in the 2030s, starting robotic before permanent habitability post-2035 and full expansion by ~2050.