Cargo spaceship orbiting Mars by Graham Gazzard

Picture of the Day 10/06/2023 - Cargo spaceship orbiting Mars by British sci-fi and aviation artist Graham Gazzard (known also as GrahamTG).

SpaceX Starship orbital flight test 1 - infographic by Tony Bela

Australian space illustrator Tony Bela has created an infographic of the upcoming first integrated flight test of SpaceX's Starship rocket next week from Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas. We have been waiting for this test flight for a year and a half by now!

Updated version. You can download the infographic in full resolution here.

SpaceX Starship landing on Mars - 4K UHD renders from Elon's Starship update 2022

When SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk gave his latest Starship update in February 2022, the presentation contained an animation of Starship's mission to Mars with a landing at Mars Base Alpha in the end. Today SpaceX finally gave public access to 4K UHD version of that animation. Here are some images from it.

Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

Starship approaching Mars:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

"For All Mankind" season 4 - concept art for Helios' Mars colony and space transport

In episode 9 of For All Mankind 3rd season Helios' CEO Dev Ayesa presented a vision for company's next generation spaceship, Mars orbital station and colonies on Mars, some of which we will most likely see realized in season 4 of the show which will air this autumn. We obtained high resolution concept images used in Dev's presentation, you can view further ahead.

For All Mankind is an alternate history sci-fi TV series exploring the idea of never ending space race if Soviets would have beaten US in the race for the Moon:

• In season 1, depicting alternate 1969 to 1974, both Soviets and US start building their separate bases near the lunar South pole;
• In season 2, depicting the alternate 1983, both bases have been expanded and the superpowers compete for resources on the Lunar surface;
• In season 3, depicting alternate 1992 to 1995, Soviets and US are joined by a private company Helios and.. North Korea for a four way race to establish the first human base on Mars.

The intention of the show is each season to jump about a decade further into the increasingly diverging reality of the show. The final scene of season 3 hints season 4 will depict alternate 2003 or so.

Concept art for Helios' Mars colony:

Concept art for Helios' spaceship Calypso:

Concept art for Helios' Mars orbital space station Phoenix-T1:

SpaceX Starship returning from Mars by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 19/03/2023 - Painting of SpaceX Starship returning to Earth from Mars moments before being catched by Mechazilla launch tower arms; created by French urban artist Colin Doublier.

Lander descending to Mars colony by Michael Carroll

Picture of the Day 15/03/2023 - a lander, preparing to jettison its parachutes, descending to a human colony on Mars by American space artist and science writer Michael Carroll. The colony features several landing pads, buried habitats, several rows of large greenhouses and a nuclear power plant shielded by the rim of a nearby crater.

Exploring Mars with children by Jon Hrubesch

In "Captain Imagine: Tour of the Solar System" (2020) children's book by Karim Elmahmoudi Captain Imagine, a futuristic space explorer, takes young Emily and her brother Simon on a guided tour of our Solar System. The retrofuturistic illustrations for the book were created by American digital painter Jon Hrubesch. Here is one of the illustrations where Captain Imagine and the two children are exploring a Martian canyon.

SpaceX Starship at a small outpost on Mars by iamVisual

Picture of the Day 18/02/2023 - SpaceX's Starship and a pair of Tesla Cybertrucks parked at a small outpost on Mars by YouTuber iamVisual.

Terraformed & colonized Mars as it would be seen from space

Terraformed and colonized Mars as it would be seen from Phobos, the closest of two natural Martian moons, by British illustrator Mark Garlick. More of his art here.

Retrofuturistic Mars exploration base by Pascal Lee

In 2021 planetary scientist, the director of Haughton-Mars Project, Pascal Lee created a painting with the same, slightly updated scene of the first human exploration mission on Mars as in Chesley Bonestell's famous painting "Exploring Mars" featured in the 1956 book "The Exploration of Mars" by Willy Ley and Wernher Von Braun.

Highlighting Bonestell's legacy, Pascal Lee wrote: "In painting this new "Exploring Mars", I wanted to pay tribute to the grand master of space art and his creation of an iconic classic, but also update elements of the landscape and hardware in light of new knowledge gained about Mars in the intervening 65 years and evolutions in our thinking about future Mars exploration systems and human surface operations."

Comparison of Bonestell's (1956) and Lee's (2021) "Exploring Mars":