A human colony on Mars with a large central dome by Swedish digital artist Erik Wernquist, the author of the stunning visionary shortfilms "Wanderers" (2014, depicting humanity's expansion into the Solar System) and "Go Incredibly Fast" (2022, identifying propulsion methods to send humans to outer Solar System and stars). This render was used as a background scenery for one of the scenes in "Go Incredibly Fast".
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Sunday, August 17, 2025
The Martian LEGO set has reached 10'000 supporters
The Martian LEGO set product idea, created by Steve Iuliano aka Mr Sci-Fi, has reached 10'000 supporter threshold on LEGO Ideas. Now it will go through a review by LEGO and, if approved, the final design will be created and made purchasable as a real LEGO Ideas set. The set includes Mark Watney's Habitat (HAB), Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), Rover and the NASA's Pathfinder probe and Sojourner rover found by Mark Watney during his voyage in the famous 2015 sci-fi movie The Martian.
Exterior and interior view of the Habitat (HAB):
Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) with separable Command Module:
Mars Exploration Rover:
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Road to the Quarry - Part 7 of Martian sketches by Andrey Maximov

- 1st part (10 sketches) of Andrey's Martian sketches depicted the expedition leaving Earth;
- 2nd part (5 sketches) depicted expedition's arrival to "International Mars Orbital Station";
- 3rd part (6 sketches) depicted spaceport "Anteros" on Mars.
- 4th part (4 sketches) depicted expedition's road to the "Harmonia City".
- 5th part (5 sketches) depicted the multi-leveled "Harmonia City" on Mars.
- 6th part (5 sketches) depicted southern (industrial) district of the "Harmonia City".
Here is 7th part (5 sketches) depicting expedition's road to the aluminum quarry:
Wilhelm Beer Valley:
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Southern District - Part 6 of Martian sketches by Andrey Maximov
Environment concept artist Andrey Maximov from Armenia has created an impressive set of artworks called Martian sketches depicting a "routine" journey to Mars in 2089. After a year's break he has published another 5 pages of those sketches (currently 35 in total). As the artist describes them: "this series is kind of like the road sketches of a member of an expedition to Mars. It's a routine flight in the not-too-distant future. The planet is more or less inhabited. We have an orbital station around Mars. There are already several settlements on the surface, mining is going on."
Here is 6th part (5 sketches) depicting southern (industrial) district of the "Harmonia City":
- 1st part (10 sketches) of Andrey's Martian sketches depicted the expedition leaving Earth;
- 2nd part (5 sketches) depicted expedition's arrival to "International Mars Orbital Station";
- 3rd part (6 sketches) depicted spaceport "Anteros" on Mars.
- 4th part (4 sketches) depicted expedition's road to the "Harmonia City".
- 5th part (5 sketches) depicted the multi-leveled "Harmonia City" on Mars.
Here is 6th part (5 sketches) depicting southern (industrial) district of the "Harmonia City":
Monday, July 14, 2025
Mars terraforming outpost
Picture of the Day 14/07/2025 - visualization of a terraforming outpost on Mars by Sebastian Esposito. The outpost unfolds across the rust-red plains of Mars, its gleaming geodesic domes and translucent greenhouses springing to life amid an otherwise barren landscape. Billowing plumes of vapor rise from atmospheric processing units - an effort to thicken the thin, carbon-dioxide-rich air, while clusters of solar arrays and modular habitats stretch toward the hazy horizon. Nearby, rockets stand ready to ferry supplies and settlers between the outpost and orbiting stations, underscoring humanity’s bold commitment to transform the Red Planet from a cold desert into a living world.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
NASA's astronauts exploring Phobos
In this NASA concept rendering, an astronaut in a bulky EVA suit stands on the jagged, crater‑pocked surface of Phobos, Mars’s largest and closest moon, as the ruddy disk of Mars looms enormous on the horizon. The uneven regolith stretches out toward a steep crater rim, inside which a fleet of landers and robotic hopper vehicles carry out survey operations.
The render is sourced from NASA's video "Pioneering Space" published 10 years ago:
Friday, June 20, 2025
Mars Cycler visualization by Walter Myers

Beyond fuel savings, cycler systems offer significant advantages for crew health and mission logistics. The consistent schedule - typically once every 2.1 years for Earth-Mars synodic alignment - means that life‑support, water, and radiation shielding infrastructure can remain aboard the cycler, reducing the need to rebuild or resupply large habitats for each departure. Cyclers can also be designed to generate artificial gravity through rotation, mitigating the deleterious effects of microgravity on astronauts during the months‑long journey. However, practical implementation faces challenges: fine-tuning phasing maneuvers to ensure planetary fly‑bys occur at the correct times, performing occasional station‑keeping burns to counter perturbations, and integrating Earth and Mars rendezvous vehicles into a coherent logistical framework. Despite these complexities, Mars cyclers remain a compelling vision for establishing a reliable, reusable link between Earth and the Red Planet.
Here is a visualization of a Mars Cycler by US sci-fi artist Walter Myers:
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Evolution of SpaceX' vision for human colony on Mars

September 2017
On September 29, 2017, Elon Musk provided 2nd annual presentation of the Starship architecture (then called BFR or Big Falcon Rocket). During the presentation titled "Making life multiplanetary" first official SpaceX visualizations for a Mars City were provided:
March 2019
On March 22, 2019, Elon Musk visited Doyle Ryder Elementary school in Flint, Michigan and demonstrated a new video of SpaceX's Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha:
Friday, May 30, 2025
SpaceX Starship Mars mission update 2025

Full presentation:
Slides from the presentation
Starship mission timeline for next 4 Earth-Mars transfer windows every 26 months:
The next opportunity is in the end of 2026, with landing in 2027:
SpaceX Mars mission in 2026:
SpaceX Mars mission in 2028:
Sunday, May 25, 2025
You woke alone in a Martian base.. only to discover you are not quite alone..
Moons of Madness is a first-person cosmic horror adventure game released in 2019. Set in a near-futuristic Martian research outpost, the game blends hard science fiction with Lovecraftian horror, drawing inspiration from works like The Martian and H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. The narrative follows Shane Newehart, an engineer tasked with maintaining the outpost until a relief team arrives on the transport ship Cyrano. The game’s depiction of the Martian outpost and its pervasive atmosphere of loneliness and abandonment are central to its immersive, unsettling experience.
The Martian outpost, Trailblazer Alpha, is a meticulously designed, state-of-the-art research facility built by the Orochi corporation to investigate a mysterious signal of intelligent origin detected from Mars. The outpost is a believable blend of scientific realism and eerie desolation, featuring functional areas like a greenhouse, infirmary, research labs, and solar panel arrays, all inspired by real-world Mars mission planning. The environment is detailed with personal touches – photo frames, workstations, coffee machines, and sticky notes – that evoke a sense of lived-in habitation, contrasting sharply with the growing sense of decay and neglect. As Shane navigates the base, he encounters malfunctioning systems, such as a flooded greenhouse filled with strange mist, Martian dust leaking into the infirmary, and alien-like, tentacle-covered vines sprawling across corridors, hinting at an otherworldly presence. The stark, rust-colored Martian landscape outside, with its dust clouds and desolate vistas, amplifies the outpost’s isolation, while the interior’s claustrophobic corridors and flickering lights enhance the feeling of being trapped in a failing, abandoned structure.
Shane, with limited security clearance, is unaware of the outpost’s true purpose and isolated from the broader mission, fostering a sense of disconnection from his colleagues and the world. His team’s absence – unexplained as they fail to return from an EVA mission – deepens this solitude, leaving him to face the outpost’s breakdowns alone. The narrative introduces psychological horror through Shane’s hallucinations and visions, possibly tied to his mother’s mysterious disappearance and his own fragile mental state, blurring the line between reality and madness. Cryptic messages, such as “They Never Turn Away!” scrawled on bulletin boards, and encounters with eerie entities like the “Thing in the Mist” intensify the feeling of being watched yet utterly alone. The outpost’s gradual transformation, with alien growths overtaking its once-functional spaces, mirrors Shane’s descent into isolation, as the environment itself seems to reject human presence.
The game’s pacing reinforces these themes, starting with routine tasks like aligning solar panels or repairing rovers, which ground players in Shane’s solitary duties, before escalating into survival against supernatural threats. The lack of combat mechanics heightens vulnerability, forcing players to confront the outpost’s dangers with only their wits, further emphasizing helplessness. While the story’s later plot twists – such as the revelation of Martian technology stabilizing the moons Phobos and Deimos as dormant elder gods – can feel disjointed, the atmosphere of loneliness and abandonment remains consistent, making Trailblazer Alpha a haunting stage for Shane’s unraveling psyche.
Here is a collection of images from the game, focusing on depiction of the Martian base:
The Martian outpost, Trailblazer Alpha, is a meticulously designed, state-of-the-art research facility built by the Orochi corporation to investigate a mysterious signal of intelligent origin detected from Mars. The outpost is a believable blend of scientific realism and eerie desolation, featuring functional areas like a greenhouse, infirmary, research labs, and solar panel arrays, all inspired by real-world Mars mission planning. The environment is detailed with personal touches – photo frames, workstations, coffee machines, and sticky notes – that evoke a sense of lived-in habitation, contrasting sharply with the growing sense of decay and neglect. As Shane navigates the base, he encounters malfunctioning systems, such as a flooded greenhouse filled with strange mist, Martian dust leaking into the infirmary, and alien-like, tentacle-covered vines sprawling across corridors, hinting at an otherworldly presence. The stark, rust-colored Martian landscape outside, with its dust clouds and desolate vistas, amplifies the outpost’s isolation, while the interior’s claustrophobic corridors and flickering lights enhance the feeling of being trapped in a failing, abandoned structure.
Shane, with limited security clearance, is unaware of the outpost’s true purpose and isolated from the broader mission, fostering a sense of disconnection from his colleagues and the world. His team’s absence – unexplained as they fail to return from an EVA mission – deepens this solitude, leaving him to face the outpost’s breakdowns alone. The narrative introduces psychological horror through Shane’s hallucinations and visions, possibly tied to his mother’s mysterious disappearance and his own fragile mental state, blurring the line between reality and madness. Cryptic messages, such as “They Never Turn Away!” scrawled on bulletin boards, and encounters with eerie entities like the “Thing in the Mist” intensify the feeling of being watched yet utterly alone. The outpost’s gradual transformation, with alien growths overtaking its once-functional spaces, mirrors Shane’s descent into isolation, as the environment itself seems to reject human presence.
Here is a collection of images from the game, focusing on depiction of the Martian base:
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