Big tent 01

A quick manipulation of a Shanghai photo to have a big tent on Mars.

The space elevator cable fall - behind the horizon

And here is a second montage of the cable fall. A falsely peaceful vision.
By day this time, we behold the cable falling from the sky and flaming the clouds before crashing behind this horizon.

I made this montage with a photo of a fantastic sunset I've witnessed last year : this "burning" sky you see is not fake. I just had to put the cable on it !
(plus the starship, mountains and foreground elements of course !)

(Made with The Gimp on Linux-Ubuntu)

The space elevator cable fall - night aerial view

One of the most impressive event in KSR's Mars trilogy is definitely the fall of the space elevator's cable on Mars. The cable is so long it wraps twice around the planet's equator ! And when entering the atmosphere, if burns and finally crashes heavily on landscapes and human settlements. The cable is supposed to have a 10m diameter. Just imagine the mess...
So, here is a new photo montage I just made, showing an aerial point of view on the cable falling just near a tent and roads. I imagined what it would look like in the night, with the burning cable lighting the darkness like an apocalyptic devil tail. As you can see, it's just one second before it hits the ground.

(Made with The Gimp on Linux-Ubuntu)

I must say I've made this picture with John Harris' "electric" visions in mind. In many of his paintings, you can feel the atmosphere cracking just before the cataclysm. If you don't know yet his art, please take a look !

Spider robots mining Phobos

After a 2 years pause, I am finally coming back to photo montages of Mars !
And here is my first new one.
In his Mars novels, Kim Stanley Robinson tells how asteroids and moons are digged by spider robots, for mining and for setting space stations. Years before, I did a storyboard sketch of this scene, but here it is now in a highly detailed montage. Here, it's not an asteroid. This is Phobos, the largest Martian moon. For the robots, I've used photos of actual spiders.
(Made with The Gimp on Linux-Ubuntu)

Prometheus : deep space cinema is back !

Around two years ago, I did a cinema post about Avatar as a visual revolution. Now early 2012, I just can't leave this space exploration blog without a word on one the most anticipated SF movies ever : Prometheus. This is nothing less than the return of Ridley Scott in the field of science fiction, with an adventure and experience that promises to be epic in scale and philosophically disturbing.
Prometheus tells the deep space expedition of a scientific spaceship to a planet where could await us unexpected answers on the origins of humanity.
The story has a connection to Alien (1979) but does explore a whole new universe around the concept of God and how worlds can be created. By the way, one of the scientific topics the movie will deal about is terraforming, which Kim Stanley Robinson is very familiar with. We can expect Prometheus to show us the darkest aspects of this God-like ability.
If not yet done, take a look at the aggressive teaser trailer of the film. And if you want to see more and don't care about spoilers, here is the full trailer.
But for something different, something special, for a smart glimpse at the future, visit the viral website of Alien/Prometheus' famous corporation Weyland : www.weylandindustries.com

Just a word about the picture above : we see the planet's surface from the dock bay of spaceship "Prometheus". As usual on DaVinci Mars Design, I show you an exploration rover! Just not sure this one is pressurized. Anyway, it has a nice 80's look that somehow takes us back to the good old designs from the times of Alien and Blade Runner where Prometheus takes its first roots.

How does this link us to Mars ? Well, Mars is not featured in Prometheus, but given the insane details of Ridley Scott's depiction of both human space technologies and alien environments, we will have the hell of an immersive travel in the depths of space in glorious sound and visuals, which is very rare in theatres. Though not Mars, this planet to be explored in the film might be a very interesting piece of alien ground, and for sure Mars fans will love the trip.

Prometheus premieres May 30th in France.

Mars500's virtual reality simulator

Mars500 experiment which took end on november 2011 was a simulation of 520 days alone for a crew of 6 men on a travel to Mars and back. The isolation reproduced most of the situations of inside the ship while the "outside scale" was recreated through a virtual reality software, with a view on the take off, the travel, the landing and works on Mars, and then the travel back home.
To know more about this virtual reality simulator made by NVidia and JCSI Group (Russia), check this page of NVidia, of see this Russian site with footage from the software.
And as usual on DaVinci, let's have a look at the visuals ! We here have a pressurized rover leaving its dock, a large digger, and 4 shots of the take off from Mars. I personally love the render of the orbital sequence, very immersive with its wide angle.
The top picture is a quick personal improvement of one of the shots. I've reached this night effect with TheGimp.

IO9 : the weather on Mars

The excellent SF and science news blog IO9 has a very interesting article on the weather on Mars and what it would actually look like. The pictures (by artist Ron Miller) are really worth a look. Here is one, showing a coming dust storm, the kind able to cover the entire planet (except the very high volcanoes' summits). In Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson describes an amazing global storm that lasts 3 martian years, bringing darkness on most of the surface for around 6 earthly years...

Here is the IO9 article, dealing with much more than storms !

Through Opportunity's eyes on Mars, january 2012

Let's start 2012 with this picture taken by NASA's rover Opportunity, in its 8th year of service on Mars. Impressive how long this little robot is working ! Here the view is from Greeley Haven.
More informations here.

2012 is going to be an exciting Mars year, as NASA's next generation rover Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory) is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater on August 6. This much larger rover will give a new dimension to the land exploration of Mars, moving faster than previous rovers and watching from a higher mast, not to mention the impressive laboratory tools it carries, plus top-quality cameras.
Visit Curiosity rover's official page for details.

Merry Christmas !

I just made this title drawing and joined it to a photo of one of my bamboo lamps.
Best wishes for the beautiful day of Christmas and for the new year to come !

Mars500 - simulation sur Terre d'un aller-retour pour Mars

Ce jeudi 4 novembre 2011 est le dernier jour d'une expérience scientifique et humaine exceptionnelle ayant lieu en Russie : 6 hommes ont été isolés pendant 520 jours pour étudier les contraintes humaines d'un voyage aller-retour pour Mars.
L'initiative est Russe et bénéficie de la collaboration des agences spatiales européenne et chinoise. Les 6 hommes ont été isolés dans un espace comparable à celui d'un vaisseau spatial, tubulaire et équipé de sas. L'expérience incluait des sorties extra-véhiculaires de maintenance et la simulation des phases de décollage et atterrissage, sur Terre et sur Mars. Ainsi, le 12 février, l'équipage atteignait Mars et en repartait le 10 mars (il y a 8 mois).
Pour ce qui est de la partie exploration martienne, le projet Mars500 a mis en place un simulateur de réalité virtuelle de mission dans l'espace et au sol. La reconstitution est très détaillée et prospective puisqu'on y trouve entre autre le pilotage d'un rover pressurisé, véhicule qui ne devrait pas voir le jour avant au moins 30 ans.
L'espace habité par l'équipage a été presque entièrement habillé de bois, et comporte une petite serre jardin potager, rares éléments naturels disponibles dans cet environnement si artificiel.
Ce samedi 5 novembre, ce sera le jour de l'"atterrissage", suivi d'une mise en quarantaine de quelques jours, et enfin la liberté pour ces 6 expérimentateurs.
Retrouver enfin le ciel, le soleil et le contact de la civilisation sera sans doute pour eux la plus belle des expériences, plus encore que de mettre le pied sur Mars.
Dans sa trilogie martienne et dans le recueil de nouvelles "Les Martiens", Kim Stanley Robinson raconte comment l'expédition des 100 premiers colons vers Mars fut précédée d'une grande expérimentation de longue durée en Antarctique, continent dont l'environnement hostile, glacial et isolé géographiquement reproduit efficacement une partie du contexte martien. Cette expérience d'isolation d'un équipage test est une étape indispensable dans l'étude du facteur humain d'un vol habité lointain, et sera sans doute réitérée plusieurs fois dans les années qu'il reste avant qu'un tel voyage devienne une réalité.

Pour plus de détails sur Mars500, visitez :
-le site officiel de Mars500
-une visite à 360° des espaces de Mars500
-une présentation du simulateur martien en réalité virtuelle
Je conseille aussi :
-un article sur le blog Geeks Girls
-la page Wikipedia de Mars500
-une vidéo de Mars500 sur les phases de simulation en extérieur.