B&W SpaceX Starship renders by Brandon Bolleber

Three black & white SpaceX's Starship renders by American motion & 3D graphics designer Brandon Bolleber. More of his art here.

Candidate sites for SpaceX Starship Mars landings revealed

[on September 2 info & map updated with additional two possible landing sites]

Robert Zimmerman from BehindTheBlack.com has found several images labelled as "Candidate Landing Site for SpaceX Starship [..]" in the latest data release from University of Arizona's HiRISE camera (aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter). It means that with help from NASA SpaceX is already quietly evaluating the best place where to land first Starships on Mars. Here are direct links to HiRISE image of: Site 1, Site 2, Site 3, Site 4, Site 5 (in Arcadia Planitia) & Site 6 (in Phlegra Montes).

For several years it hasn't been a secret SpaceX is considering four Martian regions for landings: Deuteronilus Mensae, Phlegra Montes, Utopia Planitia and southern Arcadia Planitia. But even in 2017 southern Arcadia Planitia looked "more promising", according to Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer at SpaceX. So by now SpaceX may very well be down to evaluating more precise landing sites in that region.

All the candidate landing sites (except #6 in Phlegra Montes) are located on the border between Amazonis Planitia and Arcadia Planitia. According to latest data, Arcadia Planitia is one of the few regions where abundant shallow ice is present at relatively low latitudes. There is strong evidence that this location holds buried ice glaciers. So it has two critical elements looked by SpaceX for its Mars Base Alpha: solar energy and water. Those are critical not only for life support but also for refueling Starships. It's also in low altitude meaning a bit higher air pressure than in higher areas on Mars; that is beneficial for radiation protection and creates more atmospheric drag during the landing.

We made a map of all of the candidate sites:

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.

SpaceX Starship visiting Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 25/8/2019 - Sketch of SpaceX's Starship visiting NASA's future Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Nuke Mars

"Nuke Mars" is one of the few Elon Musk's ideas we wouldn't support; there are much better options, how to kickstart a terraformation process on Mars, as solar mirrors or powdering Martian ice caps with black lichen/powder to lower their albedo. But we couldn't resist posting this awesome illustration of (hopefully robotic) Starman riding on a nuclear warhead towards Mars by Peter DeLuce 😈 More of his art here.

Speculations on SpaceX's Starship new fin configuration

Seeing most recent hardware delivered at SpaceX's Boca Chica launch facility in South Texas, where the Starship Mk 1 prototype is being built, Reddit user u/ModeHopper has done some pretty impressive pixel-counting & calculations, speculating that the new hardware is Starship's rear fin or its part. And William Falconer-Beach has already made some renders with several possible configurations of the new fins. More of his Starship renders here.

Mars base paintings by Romek Delimata

Here are several digital concept paintings of a human base on Mars by British film artist Romek Delimata, who has worked for such well-known movies / TV series as Interstellar, First Man, Westworld, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, Behind Enemy Lines etc. These images were made for The Last Days on Mars (2013) - a zombie virus horror thriller set on Mars.

Mars base at night:

Mars base interior:

Another version with different configuration and a rover parked next to the base:

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.

Speculative internal layout of SpaceX Starship by Michel Lamontagne

In the result of a discussion on NASASpaceFlight.com forum about possible internal layout of SpaceX's first crewed Starship bound for Mars Canadian design engineer Michel Lamontagne (on the forum known as lamontagne) has came up with graphics of his version for Starship's possible internal layout. More of his spaceship renderings here.

Observation / galley deck:

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