New cinematic trailer for Occupy Mars simulation game released

The Martian frontier is yours in Occupy Mars - the upcoming (as of today: Coming soon) highly technical open world simulation game about Mars colonization from Polish indie game developer Pyramid Games. In the game you will be able to "build and upgrade your base, discover new amazing regions, conduct mining operations, retrieve water and generate oxygen, grow crops, fix broken parts, learn how to survive on Mars!"

Here is the newest cinematic trailer of the game and beautiful HD images from it. Note the SpaceX's Starman style spacesuit and ITS v2016 Starship.

SpaceX ITS v2016 Starship landing at Mars base:

Assembling Mars base module by module:

Astronaut planting a tree in Mars biodome:

Mars base layout:

SpaceX Starship landing at Mars base by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 13/9/2019 - Sketch of SpaceX's Starship landing at Mars base by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here. Note the rover from The Martian and 3D-printed habitats by Hassell & EOC and AI SpaceFactory in the scene.

Three phases of terraforming Mars by Björn Selin

Annotated images with three phases of exploring and terraforming Mars by Swedish game artist Björn Selin. The images were made with the guidance of planetary scientist Chris McKay from NASA's Ames Research Center.

Phase 1 - exploration - humans can explore the barren Red planet only within protective pressure suits / rovers / habitats:

Phase 2 - planetary ecosynthesis - the air pressure and temperature has risen to the level where only warm clothing and oxygen mask is needed; simple organisms as lichens can be introduced:

Phase 3 - spreading life - humidity and temperature has risen to the level where only oxygen mask is needed; more complex organisms can be introduced:

Speculative internal structure of SpaceX Starship by William Falconer-Beach

William Falconer-Beach, a young graphic designer from New Zealand, has made several renders with possible internal structure of SpaceX's Starship. More of his Starship renders here.

Note this is only a speculation by artist. Hopefully we will see some information about Starship's internal layout in Elon Musk's presentation on September 28.

Starship's crew section:

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.