A pair of SpaceX cargo Starships on Mars by Bart Caldwell

Picture of the Day 06/05/2021 - a pair of SpaceX's cargo Starships on Mars by American space artist Bart Caldwell, known as Neopork.

SpaceX successfully lands Starship SN15 test vehicle!

Today SpaceX for the first time successfully landed a Starship test vehicle - Starship SN15. In four previous attempts since December 2020 Starship test vehicles successfully performed launch and "skydiver" belly flop maneuver but exploded during the landing attempt (in case of SN8, SN9 and SN11) or soon after (SN10). Here is full footage of today's flight from SpaceX's official livestream.

Starship is the second (spacecraft) stage of the fully reusable two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle currently developed by leading NewSpace company SpaceX. The main purpose of building such a large rocket with more than double the power of Saturn V is to enable the colonization of Mars. But Starship will be capable to do a lot of different tasks – to place satellites or space stations in orbit, ferry passengers to space stations or the Moon and even ferry passengers or cargo between any destinations on Earth within an hour.

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.

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 20 to 40 passengers by Paul King

British interior architect / designer Paul King has created his detailed concept of SpaceX's Starship interior layout for 20 (one shift) to 40 (two shifts sharing the same crew pods) passengers. Concept divides the pressurized living space into six 2.5m high levels (here shown from top to bottom).

Level 6 - Flight deck

Level 5 - Crew mess hall

SpaceX Mars Base Alpha in 4K UHD quality

When Elon Musk gave his 2nd annual presentation of the Starship architecture (then called BFR or Big Falcon Rocket) in September 2017, the presentation contained an animation of Mars Base Alpha buildup. Granted, the representation looks more like Sim City on Mars with generic buildings in octagonal pattern, but it's the best visual overview of Mars Base Alpha buildup SpaceX has officially provided yet. Here are images from that animation in 4K UHD quality we haven't seen been posted anywhere else.

Closeup of Mars Base Alpha:

Buildup of Mars Base Alpha

1st stage - initial base:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

2nd stage - mid-sized base:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

NASA selects SpaceX Lunar Starship to return humans to the Moon

Today NASA announced it has selected SpaceX "to continue development of the first commercial human lander that will safely carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface" as part of the Artemis program. A year ago it was announced three contenders were selected to compete for this mission - SpaceX, Blue Origin's led "National Team" and Dynetics - and SpaceX revealed it is working for a lunar optimized Starship. Now we know SpaceX's proposal has won the race. In a milestone-based fixed-price contract SpaceX will be able to receive $2.89 billion to develop the Lunar Starship. The year when SpaceX needs to land humans back to the Moon is not specified yet.

In addition to today's announcement, NASA shared latest official render of SpaceX's Lunar Starship which slightly differs from last year's version:

Brutalist architecture in Martian science fiction

Brutalism is an architectural style that emerged in the 1950s and grew out of the early-20th century modernist movement. Brutalist buildings are characterized by their massive, monolithic and "blocky" appearance with a rigid geometric style, large-scale use of poured concrete and a predominantly monochrome color palette. The style was popular in 1960s and 1970s in the West and well into 1980s in communist countries and Latin America.

As Brutalism started with an ethos of social utopianism but ended with associations of being cold, inhuman and totalitarian, no wonder it is the most dominant architectural style in dystopian fiction. But it is present also in general science fiction when envisioning a city in future.

One of the flaws of most Brutalist buildings is associated with weather effects on raw concrete, especially in wet and cold climate. Thus, despite being massive and seemingly long-lasting, most of Brutalist buildings are in poor condition today. But it's not a concern on Mars with its dry climate preserving rocks for billions of years. That is one of the reasons movies, TV series, games and art portraying human colonies and bases on Mars is filled with buildings in Brutalist style. Although the truest reason could be that Brutalist architecture with its simple shapes and monochrome colors can be easily reproduced in art, computer graphics and film sets :)

Here are some examples of Brutalist architecture in movies, TV series, video games and art set on Mars:

In movies and TV series

One of the most famous Martian movies - Total Recall (1990) - has some of the purest examples of Brutalist architecture, although most of them in scenes on Earth (filmed in Mexico City):

Mars base by Mark Garlick

Picture of the Day 12/04/2021 - an early human base on Mars by British illustrator Mark Garlick. More of his art here. Note the Spirit/Opportunity rover in the field.

First humans on Mars

Young Irish 3D artist Matthew Ryan has created a stunning animation of a SpaceX's Starship getting people from Earth to Mars for the first time ever. Here is the final scene with a group of Starmen disembarking from Starship on Mars:

Full animation here:

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 100 passengers by Joseph Lantz

Joseph Lantz has created his concept for the interior layout of SpaceX's 100-passenger Starship (the passenger capacity goal stated by Elon Musk). Therefore this concept isn't meant for the first crew Starships on Mars used as temporary habitats for the first few years (those first Starships will have much smaler crew). The concept divides the pressurized living space into 8 decks (here shown from top to bottom) and follows a common design choice of a central stairway through all the decks.

Deck 8 - Observation