Spaceship launch from Mars colony by Jort van Welbergen

Picture of the Day 13/08/2023 - Spaceship launch from a human colony on Mars by Dutch freelance movie and game concept designer Jort van Welbergen. More of his art here.

Closeup of the colony:

SpaceX Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha by Mark Garlick

British illustrator Mark Garlick has created a set of renders depicting SpaceX's Starship landing at a spaceport near Mars Base Alpha. The spaceport is equipped with a shorter version of SpaceX's launch integration tower for catching and launching only the second stage of Starship rocket, since Mars's comparably lower gravity doesn't require Starship's booster stage to reach orbit.

SpaceX Starship landing on Mars - 4K UHD renders from Elon's Starship update 2022

When SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk gave his latest Starship update in February 2022, the presentation contained an animation of Starship's mission to Mars with a landing at Mars Base Alpha in the end. Today SpaceX finally gave public access to 4K UHD version of that animation. Here are some images from it.

Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Starship approaching Mars:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

SpaceX Starship at spaceport on Mars by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 16/10/2022 - Painting of SpaceX Starship preparing for launch from Mars Base Alpha's spaceport by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Mars colony in Moonshot (2022) movie

Moonshot is recently released (March 2022) science fiction teen comedy set in 2049 when trips to Mars has become routine for skilled or wealthy people. A rich, skilled girl (Lana Condor) and a poor, "mediocre" boy (Cole Sprouse) travel together to Mars, each for their own reasons, and after arrival they both discover those reasons were wrong. Although the movie by itself is quite silly with childish dialogues and cheap interior sets, the CGI for Mars colony exteriors is really good. Here are some HD images from the movie:

Mars Base Alpha by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 19/02/2022 - Painting of several SpaceX Starship launch towers equipped with Mechazilla catch system in front of Mars Base Alpha by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Elon's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha

During Starship update presentation on Thursday SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk shared to us SpaceX's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha. Here are some images from the animation.

Part of Mars Base Alpha is covered with a large, transparent dome:

Starships are landing on landing pads some distance away from the base:

Settlers arriving at Mars Base Alpha:

Animation of Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha shared by Elon:

Spaceport on Phobos (concept art for Aliens: Colonial Marines)

Digital paintings of a spaceport on Phobos, the closest of two natural Martian moons. These images are concept art for Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013) - a first-person shooter (FPS) game set in the universe of Alien franchise. Unfortunately this location didn't make to the final game release.

In Alien's universe (depicted in Alien, Predator & Prometheus movies, games and books) Mars is the first planet colonized by humans in mid-21st century. There are many colonies and military bases on the planet established by both national and commercial entities and housing millions of people. On Phobos there is a commercial research facility experimenting with xenomorphs or aliens - a highly aggressive endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species.

Spaceship leaving Phobos' spaceport. Note the partially terraformed Mars below:

New settlers arriving on Mars

New settlers arriving at Martian spaceport – a concept artwork by Canadian illustrator Alexandra Hodgson for upcoming computer game Terraformers. It's a Mars colonization strategy game to be released in Q1 2022 and developed by indie game developer Asteroid Lab. Since October 2021 you can play free prologue of the game.

Design of the spaceship is clearly inspired by the initial design of SpaceX's Starship when it was first presented in 2016 and called Interplanetary Transport System. As we have observed – that first 12m diameter Starship design is quite popular with artists and game developers depicting colonization of Mars.

Starship spaceport at Mars Base Alpha

A futuristic vision of a Starman walking past spaceport at Mars Base Alpha in 2080 by YouTuber iamVisual. There are several SpaceX Starships and Starman's Tesla Cybertruck parked at the spaceport. We estimate such sight will be possible much sooner – in around 2040.

Starship Super Heavy launch pads at Mars City

As SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged, eventually Super Heavy booster stages for Starships could be manufactured on Mars as a launch platform for outer Solar system missions. Here is a vision of several Starship Super Heavy (in its 2016 design, then called Interplanetary Transport System) launch pads at Mars City's spaceport by US designer Casey Alexander.

"Mars City" is the name Elon Musk gave to SpaceX's future human colony on Mars (now referred to as "Mars Base Alpha") in some earlier presentations of SpaceX's Mars colonization architecture.

Elon Musk arrives to Mars Base Alpha

Who will guess the year? SpaceX's CEO and chief designer Elon Musk finally arrives to the spaceport of Mars Base Alpha by American comics artist Eli Burton, creator of The Adventures of Starman.

Astronaut relaxing near a SpaceX Starship spaceport

Picture of the Day 30/03/2021 - Astronaut leaning against his Mars rover derived from a retro car near a SpaceX Starship spaceport by American video game concept artist Darren Bacon in collaboration with parody account Bored Elon.

СССР-2061 - a retrofuturistic vision of Soviet Union on Mars

Project "СССР-2061" is a community of Russian artists and writers envisioning Soviet Union in 2061 in an alternate reality. In 2011 they held their 1st arts contest asking participants to envision Soviet Union on Mars 50 years into the future. Here are some of the artworks from the contest.

Soviet spaceport in Valles Marineris on Mars by Igor Savin:

Domed soviet colony on Mars by Grinya Lesnoy:

Spaceport on Phobos by Thomas Peters

Picture of the Day 12/02/2021 - Spaceport on Phobos, the closest of two natural Martian moons, by graphic designer and illustrator Thomas Peters (Drell-7). More of his space art here.

Orcus Patera base on Mars from Orbiter space flight simulator

Orbiter is a free-to-play space flight simulator developed by a single man Martin Schweiger since 2000 (the last major update was on 2016) and using realistic physics. Originally it's a very bare-bones program, but has a lot of fan-made addons which make the simulator much more enjoyable. One of those addons is Orcus Patera - a fictional human base/spaceport located in Orcus Patera depression on Mars; the addon is developed by Well and DanSteph.

Here are some images of the base modified in New Rome addon (which uses more recent Mars HRSC high-res texture pack and places the base in Valles Marineris):

Family spacecraft approaching Martian spaceport by Clive Almeida

Inspiring scene from our bright future where humanity has colonized the Solar system - family spacecraft approaching Martian spaceport by Indian concept artist Clive Almeida; an image from his concept of a Mars theme park "Mars: a brave new world". More of his art here.

SpaceX spaceport on Mars by Mike Winkelmann (beeple)

Picture of the Day 20/1/2019 - vision of a futuristic SpaceX spaceport on Mars by digital fantasy artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as beeple. More of his art here.

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Spaceport in large Mars cave by Connor Sheehan

Picture of the Day 9/9/2018 - Spaceport in a large Mars cave by British concept artist Connor Sheehan. More of his art here.

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Mars colony with domed gardens and spaceport by Duncan Li

Picture of the Day 31/8/2018 - Human colony on Mars with domed gardens and a spaceport by Australian concept artist Duncan Li. More of his art here.

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