3 way race to Mars in season 3 of "For All Mankind" alternate history TV series

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 first two seasons of the show the focus was 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.

As hinted in the final scene of season 2 Mars will be the central stage in season 3 of the show. Recently released season 3 trailer shows that the Soviets and US are joined by a private company Helios for a three way race to Mars in 1995. Here you can watch the trailer and see some screenshots from it. The season 3 will start airing in June 10 on Apple TV+.

Helios' Mars mobile habitat:

3 rivals racing for Mars in season 3 of For All Mankind TV series:

NASA's spaceship arriving to Mars:

How we will travel beyond Mars - shortfilm by Erik Wernquist

Swedish digital artist Erik Wernquist, the author of the stunning shortfilm "Wanderers" which depicts a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, has created another inspirational shortfilm "Go Incredibly Fast" "to identify a few propulsion approaches we might utilize to send humans to the worlds in our Solar System beyond Mars and reach out across the vast distances between stars."

Here you can watch the shortfilm and see some Mars-related images from it:

Astronaut in front of Mars colony:

Space station orbiting Mars:

SpaceX Starships at Mars Base Alpha by TijnM

YouTuber TijnM has created an animation of SpaceX's Starship traveling to Mars and landing at Mars Base Alpha. Here are two renders of the base made for the animation:

Here is the full animation:

Militech colony on Mars in Cyberpunk 2077

Militech is a megacorporation specializing in weapons manufacturing and private military contracting in the alternate universe of the futuristic dystopian Cyberpunk franchise. It dominates much of the New United States of America's (NUSA) economy and politics, with the last few NUSA Presidents being ex-Militech executives.

We gave a brief insight of the space travel in Cyberpunk world when speculating about possible space-related content in Cyberpunk 2077 - a recent first-person open world role playing video game set in the universe of Cyberpunk. When playing the game we came across a short news segment announcing Militech's plans to construct a new colony on Mars and beginning selling (expensive) residential modules in the residential area of the colony:

Full news segment about Militech's new colony on Mars:

Mars Base Alpha by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 19/02/2022 - Painting of several SpaceX Starship launch towers equipped with Mechazilla catch system in front of Mars Base Alpha by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Elon's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha

During Starship update presentation on Thursday SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk shared to us SpaceX's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha. Here are some images from the animation.

Part of Mars Base Alpha is covered with a large, transparent dome:

Starships are landing on landing pads some distance away from the base:

Settlers arriving at Mars Base Alpha:

Animation of Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha shared by Elon:

SpaceX Starship update 2022

On February 10th SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk provided the latest update of SpaceX's Starship architecture. Here are slides and animations from his presentation.

Animation of Starship launch and arrival to Mars Base Alpha [updated on April 2023]:

Full presentation:

Slides from the presentation

Starship specifications:

Super Heavy booster specifications:

Spaceport on Phobos (concept art for Aliens: Colonial Marines)

Digital paintings of a spaceport on Phobos, the closest of two natural Martian moons. These images are concept art for Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013) - a first-person shooter (FPS) game set in the universe of Alien franchise. Unfortunately this location didn't make to the final game release.

In Alien's universe (depicted in Alien, Predator & Prometheus movies, games and books) Mars is the first planet colonized by humans in mid-21st century. There are many colonies and military bases on the planet established by both national and commercial entities and housing millions of people. On Phobos there is a commercial research facility experimenting with xenomorphs or aliens - a highly aggressive endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species.

Spaceship leaving Phobos' spaceport. Note the partially terraformed Mars below:

Spaceship landing on Mars by Evgeny Kazantsev

A large spaceship with the design similar to Star Trek's USS Enterprise landing on Mars by Russian sci-fi artist Evgeny Kazantsev from his "Ural Airlines Fantastic Fleet" series. More of his art here.

Mars Base Alpha animation by Slave Popovski

A short animation with SpaceX's Starship & 6x6 Cybertruck at Mars Base Alpha by former avionics engineer, now CGI artist Slave Popovski (known as pslavi) from Australia.

New settlers arriving on Mars

New settlers arriving at Martian spaceport – a concept artwork by Canadian illustrator Alexandra Hodgson for upcoming computer game Terraformers. It's a Mars colonization strategy game to be released in Q1 2022 and developed by indie game developer Asteroid Lab. Since October 2021 you can play free prologue of the game.

Design of the spaceship is clearly inspired by the initial design of SpaceX's Starship when it was first presented in 2016 and called Interplanetary Transport System. As we have observed – that first 12m diameter Starship design is quite popular with artists and game developers depicting colonization of Mars.

Mars base by Tetsuya Mizuno

Picture of the Day 01/01/2022 - a small shuttle landing at human base on Mars by Japanese illustrator Tetsuya Mizuno (Watermark).

Closeup of illustration's right side:

Merry Christmas from Santa Claus on Mars!

Merry Christmas for you all from Santa Claus on Mars! Artwork by American illustrator, Star Wars artist Chris Trevas. More of his art here.

Map of shallow subsurface water in Valles Marineris on Mars

On December 15 scientists from Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia revealed a discovery of an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars. Assuming the hydrogen is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in Candor Chaos region appears to be water. The discovery was made by neutron detector FREND on ESA&Roscosmos's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter orbiting Mars since October 2016. FREND is mapping the distribution of hydrogen in the uppermost meter of the planet’s surface. Hydrogen indicates the presence of water, being one of the constituents of the water molecule; it can also indicate water absorbed into the surface, or minerals that were formed in the presence of water.

While water is known to exist on Mars, most is found in the planet’s cold polar regions as ice. Typically water ice is not found exposed at the surface near the equator, as temperatures there are not cold enough for exposed water ice to be stable. Minerals seen in this part of Mars typically contain only a few percent water, much less than is evidenced by these new observations. “We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water – far more water than we expected. This is very much like Earth’s permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures,” told one of the scientists involved in the study.

These are very inspiring discoveries for the future human colonization of Valles Marineris region we have imagined in our speculative Mars Colonization Timeline!

⇧ In the area C up to 40% of the near-surface material appears to be composed of water (by weight).

The most water-rich area in Valles Marineris region is located in Candor Chaos:

HERE is global-scale map of shallow subsurface water distribution on Mars published in 2019.

Lunar colony in season 5 of The Expanse

After the bombardment of Earth Lovell City on Luna (the Moon) became the de facto capital of United Nations, one of the three competing powers in universe of The Expanse TV series - a political sci-fi drama set a few centuries in the future where humans have colonized the entire Solar system. Luna functions as a way station between Earth and the rest of the Solar system, and its spaceport at Lovell City serves as a natural meeting place between residents of the inner planets and Belters. Due to its lower gravity, Luna is the only body in the inner system that Belters can easily visit. UN citizens living on Luna are generally wealthier than most of their counterparts on Earth.

As Mars was one of the major locations in season 4 of the show, Luna is in season 5, coming into spotlight after the bombardment of Earth. Here is a collection with HD images from the Lunar scenes in season 5 of The Expanse. There are a few more from the trailer of the season.

Avasarala looking at Lovell City:

Memorial at Lovell City:

SpaceX Legacy: episode 1: Manned Mission to Mars

YouTuber iamVisual has started to produce animated short series about the legacy of SpaceX – the leading NewSpace company developing innovative and cost-effective rocket and space technologies, including the first fully and rapidly reusable rocket system – two-stage super heavy-lift Starship rocket. The 1st episode of the series visualizes first human mission to Mars. You can watch it here:

Human mission to Martian moons Phobos and Deimos by Pascal Lee

Over the years planetary scientist, the director of Haughton-Mars Project, Pascal Lee has created a set of paintings depicting human mission to the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. Here are several of them. More of his Mars related paintings here.

Spaceship approaching Mars with Phobos and Deimos in sight:

Landing on Deimos, the farthest and smallest of the two Martian moons:

Astronauts exploring Deimos:

Landing on Phobos, the closest and largest of the two Martian moons:

SpaceX Starship next to SLS rolling out of NASA's VAB by James Vaughan

Picture of the Day 25/11/2021 - SpaceX's full stack Starship Super Heavy rolling out of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) next to Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at Kennedy Space Center by American photographer and concept artist James Vaughan. More of his aerospace and defense concept art here.

Domed Martian city by Indranil Saha

Picture of the Day 20/11/2021 - an early human base on Mars in front of a domed city (Gaia-1) by graphic designer Indranil Saha (known as encreate) from India. More of his art here.

SpaceX Starship at Mars Base Alpha by Caspar Stanley

SpaceX's Starship standing in front of a geodesic dome at Mars Base Alpha by Danish freelance 3D artist Caspar Stanley. It's quite likely the first crewed Starships sent to Mars and acting as temporary habitats for the first settlers will stay on Mars forever, forming the basis of Mars Base Alpha built around them, as can be seen in SpaceX's own renderings.

Mars outpost by Robert McCall

Picture of the Day 02/11/2021 - An early human outpost on Mars consisting of several landers and rovers by classical space artist Robert McCall.

Squid Game season 2 on Mars

Squid Game season 2 on Mars with Player #456 dressed as SpaceX's Starman and playing* "Red light, Green light". Created by French urban artist Colin Doublier.

Martian aesthetics of Dune (2021) movie

The most recent adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune" – Denis Villeneuve's movie "Dune: Part One" (2021) was one of the most anticipated sci-fi movies of the year. It was released internationally on September 15 and in the US on October 22. The movie is brilliant and without a doubt the best visual adaptation of the famous novel. We are waiting for Part Two.

Dune has always been somewhat Martian. And the most recent movie is not an exception. Granted, planet Dune is a hot desert, not cold as Mars is, has breathable atmosphere, advanced life forms and Earth-like gravity but the scenery is pretty Martian. The landscapes in Villeneuve's movie has even been filmed in the same place where The Martian (2015) has been – Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. And it doesn't stop at landscapes – the Brutalist buildings of Arrakeen has Martian vibes as well.

Arrakeen Palace:

Ornithopter flying in Dune's sky:

Atreides spaceships and troops arriving on Dune:

Arrakeen city:

Ornithopter leaving research station:

Starship spaceport at Mars Base Alpha

A futuristic vision of a Starman walking past spaceport at Mars Base Alpha in 2080 by YouTuber iamVisual. There are several SpaceX Starships and Starman's Tesla Cybertruck parked at the spaceport. We estimate such sight will be possible much sooner – in around 2040.