Large human base on Mars by Manchu (Philippe Bouchet)

Picture of the Day 12/1/2020 - lander landing at a large human base on Mars featuring several residential domes & greenhouses, solar array, tall communications antenna, light reconnaissance plane and enclosed landing pad. It's a concept art by French sci-fi artist Manchu (Philippe Bouchet) from French chapter of The Mars Society (Association Planète Mars).

Closeup of the central part of the base:

Martian colonies in season 4 of The Expanse

Although Mars is one of the three competing powers in universe of The Expanse TV series (a political sci-fi detective set a few centuries in the future where humans have colonized the entire Solar system) only a few scenes were actually set on Mars in first three seasons of the series. That changes in season 4 where the life on Mars at last gets proper depiction.

In The Expanse Mars, governed by Martian Congressional Republic, is a militaristic and technologically advanced society of over nine billion inhabitants. It is the major competitor of Earth & Luna, governed by United Nations. Earth, dragged down by overpopulation and climate change, envies Mars because of its society's high mobilization towards the shared goal of terraforming Mars. But in season 4 that shared goal and order of the Martian society is starting to erode as the new habitable planets beyond the rings are discovered (without the costly need of being terraformed as Mars does). As the interplanetary military tension is over veterans find themselves needless in the peace time society; crime and corruption is rising, and some even manage to sell older military tech to Belter pirate gangs.

Here is a collection with HD images from the Martian scenes in season 4 of The Expanse (open link in new tab to view in full resolution):

Exterior and interior of a shipyard for Martian fleet:

Martian school kids training for exam:

Astronauts returning to Mars colony by Ferdinand Ladera

Picture of the Day 13/12/2019 - exploration team returning to human colony on Mars by Filipino fantasy artist Ferdinand Ladera; illustration for The Expanse role-playing board game.

Mars in Ad Astra (2019) movie

Ad Astra is a recent (September 2019) science fiction thriller set in mid-21st century when humanity has started to settle the inner Solar System. A son (Brad Pitt) is sent on a mission to uncover the truth about his father's (Tommy Lee Jones) long lost mission near Neptune which now threatens the survival of Earth. In his lonesome and dangerous mission he visits several places including a dynamic but wild human colony on the Moon and a desolate relay station on Mars. Here are some HD images from the Martian scenes in the movie.

Underground Mars colony for 1000 people by InnSpace

A weak ago we posted a concept of Mars colony for 1000 people created by InnSpace team from Poland for Mars Colony Prize contest (held by The Mars Society). In some of the responses there was a critique stressing out the colony should be built underground for better radiation protection. Since then the authors of the concept sent us some additional renderings from which we can conclude it's actually the case - the concept includes most of the buildings being built underground (with only the transparent rooftops sticking out from regolith cover for natural lighting) and interconnected via underground passages.

A hyperloop line entering the colony:

Mars colony for 1000 people by Innspace team (Mars Colony Prize contest)

This year The Mars Society held Mars Colony Prize - a contest for "the best plan for a Mars colony of 1000 people. The colony should be self-supporting to the maximum extent possible - i.e. relying on a minimum mass of imports from Earth. The goal is to have the colony be able to produce all the food, clothing, shelter, power, common consumer products, vehicles, and machines for 1000 people, with only the minimum number of key components, such as advanced electronics needing to be imported from Earth." According to speculations laid out in our Mars Colonization Timeline the first human base on Mars could reach a thousand inhabitants by late 2040s.

The winners of the contest were chosen at the International Mars Society convention in Los Angeles, California in October 2019. Here are images of the Ideacity concept by InnSpace team from Poland which got the 5th place:

Central cluster of the colony:

Factory on Mars by Adam Taylor

Picture of the Day 3/11/2019 - digital drawing of a factory on Mars by American concept artist Adam Taylor. More of his art here.

Incredible miniatures for Total Recall (1990) Martian landscapes

One of the best movies set on Mars ever made - Total Recall (1990), stared by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin and Sharon Stone and directed by Paul Verhoeven (known also for Starship Troopers, RoboCop, Basic Instinct and other movies), was the last major movie to heavily utilize miniature effects before computer graphics took that job. Vast and incredibly detailed miniature Martian landscapes were built for the movie. Unfortunately most of the miniatures were destroyed after the filming was done. Here are some rare photos from the production process of the miniature Martian landscapes before their destruction.

Mars colony:

⇩ in movie ⇩

The spaceport:

Future city on terraformed Mars by Julian Faylona

Picture of the Day 19/9/2019 - City consisting of several independent and self-sustaining "hives" on terraformed Mars in a far future by digital artist Julian Faylona. More of his art here.

Mars colony construction from The Space Between Us movie

Picture of the Day 26/8/2019 - Construction site of a human colony with several domes on Mars from The Space Between Us (2017) - a teen romance movie about the first child born on Mars. More images from the movie here.

Mars city clouded in a sandstorm

Picture of the Day 19/8/2019 - Mars city clouded in a sandstorm; an image of ArcCorp Area 18 cityscape from upcoming massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Star Citizen funded by an unprecedented crowdfunding campaign of over $200 million on Kickstarter. The game is released by modules and is playable for several years now in alpha stage.

Mars colony bored into a mountain from season 4 teaser of The Expanse

Two weeks ago came out the first season 4 teaser for The Expanse TV series - a political sci-fi detective set a few centuries in the future where humans have colonized the entire Solar system; Mars is one of three competing forces in the universe of The Expanse. There are two three short scenes on Mars in the teaser.

Human colony bored into a Martian mountain:

Shuttle over colonized Mars:

Earth's leader Avasarala in Martian tunnel:

⇛ HD images of Mars from season 2 of The Expanse TV series here

Domed park with central waterfall on Mars

Design of what could be a domed park with central, artificial waterfall and public space on Mars by Safdie Architects. These are design images for 1.3 billion $ Jewel Changi Airport project opened on April 2019 in Singapore. The Jewel is a connector hub for Singapore's Changi Airport terminals, designed in shape of glass & steel torus dome with world's tallest indoor waterfall in the center and multi-level marketplace & public space hidden inside gardens on the terraces and in canyons around it.

Shops and restaurants are well hidden inside gardens:

Leaving the cradle - incredible trailer of TerraGenesis

The latest trailer of TerraGenesis mobile game made by famous YouTuber MelodySheep is just stunning, reminding the vibes of The Expanse TV series. TerraGenesis is a popular mobile terraforming simulator game where you can establish a colony and gradually terraform other planetary bodies in Solar System.



Here are some images from the trailer:

Mars colony by Mauricio Pampin

Picture of the Day 19/7/2019 - Mars colony with several interconnected geodesic domes by Canadian concept artist Mauricio Pampin. More of his art here.

Building an industrial complex on Mars by William Black

To survive on Mars longterm humans will need to live off the land (a practice in space exploration called In Situ Resource Utilization or shorter ISRU), so we will need to extract, process and store local resources of the planet. Here is William Black's artistic vision of building an industrial complex on Mars at Syria Planum, located south from Noctis Labyrinthus. More of his space concept art here.

Mars colony in artificial, domed canyon

Picture of the Day 4/7/2019 - design of what could be a human colony in a narrow, artificial, domed canyon on Mars by LAVA architects. This image was done for a design of Masdar City (next to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) - a futuristic sustainable city project in development and intended to be a hub for cleantech companies.

NatGeo's MARS TV series: drama part of full season 2

Most of the criticism against National Geographic Channel's MARS TV series is related to the concept of joining drama with documentary. In a result the viewer can't fully enjoy any of the two parts without interruptions from the other part every few minutes. So here you can watch only the drama part of full season 2 of the show without documentary cut-ins.

In season 1 the series depicted first human mission to Mars and hardships of building a base on Mars in a lava tube. Season 2 is digging deeper into the challenges of life on Mars, covering everything from the first Martian-born baby to surviving the common cold to the first commercial efforts by Lukrum Corporation to exploit the planet's resources.

Watch full episodes of the show here:

• Season 1
• Season 2

Mars colony concept by Dmitry Azarov for National Geographic's MARS TV series

Russian 3D artist Dmitry Azarov has made some concept renders of human colony on Mars for National Geographic's "MARS" TV series (season 3 ?). More of his art here.

Underground atrium on Mars by Vincent Callebaut

Picture of the Day 10/6/2019 - design of what could be an interior view of an underground atrium on Mars by French eco architect Vincent Callebaut. This image was done for a design project "Wooden Orchids" of an eco-responsible shopping mall in Ruichang, China.