Showing posts with label Valles Marineris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valles Marineris. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Painting of Terraformed Mars by Dmytro Ivashchenko

Picture of the Day 15/12/2020 - Oil painting of terraformed Mars with Valles Marineris region at the center by Ukrainian freelance artist Dmytro Ivashchenko. More of his art here.

Painting of Terraformed Mars by Dmytro Ivashchenko

Thursday, December 26, 2019

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):

Mars colony in Season 4 of The Expanse

Mars colony in Season 4 of The Expanse
Exterior and interior of a shipyard for Martian fleet:
Shipyard exterior on Mars in Season 4 of The Expanse

Shipyard interior on Mars in Season 4 of The Expanse
Martian school kids training for exam:
Martian school kids training for exam in Season 4 of The Expanse

Sunday, October 27, 2019

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):

Shuttle over Orcus Patera base on Mars from Orbiter space flight simulator

Orbiter 2016 space flight simulator

Orcus Patera base on Mars from Orbiter space flight simulator

Monday, October 14, 2019

Colonized Valles Marineris region on Mars from season 4 teaser of The Expanse

There are two short scenes on Mars in the latest 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 were three more scenes on Mars in the first teaser for season 4.
Human colonies in Valles Marineris region (horizontally flipped in the trailer for some unknown reason) on Mars:
Human colonies in Valles Marineris region on Mars from season 4 teaser of The Expanse
Earth's leader Avasarala attending a diplomatic banquet on Mars:
Earth's leader Avasarala attending a diplomatic banquet on Mars from season 4 teaser of The Expanse

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


Monday, November 5, 2018

Basejumping in Valles Marineris by Quentin Gautier

Picture of the Day 5/11/2018 - astronauts basejumping in Valles Marineris on Mars by Canadian concept artist Quentin Gautier. More of his art here.
(Open link in new tab to view ⇩ in full resolution)
Basejumping in Valles Marineris on Mars by Quentin Gautier

Friday, June 29, 2018

Boy on Mars messaging his dad (image from The Expanse season 3)

Picture of the Day 29/6/2018 - Alex receiving a video message from his son on Mars - image from episode 6, season 3 of The Expanse sci-fi TV series. Images of Mars from season 2 of the series here.

Boy on Mars messaging his dad - image from The Expanse TV series

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Terraformed Green Mars by Ludovic Celle

Picture of the Day 4/10/2017 - Terraformed Green Mars by French graphic artist Ludovic Celle. More of his Mars art here.
(Open link in new tab to view ⇩ in HD 4:3 wallpaper resolution)
Terraformed Green Mars wallpaper by Ludovic Celle

Saturday, May 27, 2017

HD images of Mars from "The Expanse" TV series

Mars is one of two competing superpowers in the 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) but only a few scenes are actually set on Mars in the series. Here are some HD images from those few scenes in season 2 (open link in new tab to view in full resolution):

Valles Marineris - Mars image from The ExpanseMartian orbit - Mars image from The Expanse

Martian soldier - Mars image from The ExpanseSoldier in a canyon - Mars image from The Expanse

Terraforming Red Mars - image from The ExpanseTerraformed Blue Mars - image from The Expanse

Mars colony - image from The ExpanseValles Marineris - Mars image from The Expanse

Colonized independent Mars - image from The ExpanseMars as Earth's colony 137 years ago - image from The Expanse

More HD images from The Expanse TV series:


Thursday, January 19, 2017

Mars colony at Valles Marineris by Brian Higgins

Picture of the Day 19/1/2017 - Mars colony at Valles Marineris by concept artist Brian Higgins. More of his art here.

Mars colony at Valles Marineris by Brian Higgins

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Mars lander over Valles Marineris by William Black

Picture of the Day 12/9/15 - A spacecraft entering Mars atmosphere over Valles Marineris by William Black.
More of his space concept art here.
(Open link in new tab to view ⇩ in full resolution)
Mars lander over Valles Marineris by William Black

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Mars movie review - Stranded (2001)

Stranded movie Mars
Stranded (original title in Spanish: Náufragos) is a 2001 low budget Spanish movie about struggle for survival of 5 astronauts stranded on Mars. Not all of them survive till the end.

Story


The movie starts with Mars landing craft crashing on the surface of the planet along with 6 astronauts. The captain of the crew is dead and the remaining 5 are trying to figure out how to survive till the rescue mission could hopefully arrive 26 months later. The resources of food, water, oxygen and energy is limited and the only "solution" seems to be to let survive only 2 of them. So the 3 "expendable" ones are going for a "walk". They reach the edge of the Valles Marineris and descend down. When only 2 of them are left they discover a cave which unexpectedly turn into ancient Martian tunnels with oxygen in them. An unfortunate step into "wrong" tunnel kills 1 of 2 remaining ones. The last surviving women discovers the dead bodies of local Martians and their somehow pressurized (with no visible roof) oasis / ghost town into the depths of Valles Marineris. So she calls the other 2 which had stayed in the landing craft to come and join her. Hopefully they will survive till the rescue comes.

Verdict: 5/10


If the best Mars movie - Total Recall - would be about 1 point short of being "the ideal Mars movie", Stranded is 4 more points bellow that level because of these huge drawbacks:
  • the movie is low budget and it definitely feels like being low budget;
  • the acting is very poor. You don't get the feeling that characters are actual top-level astronauts/scientists which had been carefully chosen to be the first humans on Mars. Dialogues are clumsy and, despite the movie being quite depressive, the actors don't believably act as being hopelessly stranded millions of miles from Earth with possible rescue coming only years away at best.
Despite that, the concept of the movie is quite interesting (unlike some recent Mars-zombie movies like The last days on Mars with a bigger budget) and Stranded is worth watching for Mars fans.

Here you can watch the trailer of the movie:


My reviews of other movies set on Mars:

Friday, April 4, 2014

Astronauts exploring Valles Marineris by Tiago da Silva

Picture of the Day 4/4/14 - "Valles Marineris" by Portuguese fantasy artist Tiago da Silva (Grafik). More of his work (no more Mars though) at grafik.deviantart.com
(Open link in new tab to view ⇩ in HD wallpaper resolution)
Astronauts exploring Valles Marineris by Grafik