Is there life on Mars? Yes – 1 million humans to be precise.
From buildings and vehicles, to farms and clothing, what could life on Mars look like to support a human population of one million?
This is the question being raised by HP Mars Home Planet, a new global project that challenges engineers, architects, designers, artists and students to imagine, design and experience humanity’s future on the red planet through VR.
The HP Mars Home Planet project advances work initially done for Mars 2030, a virtual reality experience created by Fusion with NASA.
It looks beyond 2030, to a time in the future where there are families and communities living on Mars, with the project looking to solve some of the challenges of urbanisation on the red planet.
Ultimately, through the VR experience, people will be able to experience what life on Mars might be like.
The year-long program has three phases, starting with the Home Planet’s Mars Urbanisation Challenge, where participants will focus on transportation and infrastructure concepts for a specific location.
NASA identified Mawrth Vallis – Mars Valley in Welsh – as a potential landing site on Mars. Following the concept phase, 3D modeling and rendering will be completed – resulting in a virtual reality experience of life on Mars.
Judges include world-renowned architect, Daniel Libeskind and Jay Rogers, CEO and co-founder of Local Motors.
As one would imagine there are a whole host of HP Z Workstations up for grabs as prizes.
To bring HP Mars Home Planet to life, HP and Nvidia partnered with Technicolor, Autodesk, Unreal Engine, Fusion, Launch Forth and VIVE. Participants of the project will use Autodesk software to design 3D models of Martian buildings, cities, vehicles and infrastructure. Unreal Engine will then be used to create a virtual reality simulation.
The environment will build on Mars Valley terrain from Fusion’s “Mars 2030” game, which is based on NASA research.
HP Mars Home Planet is produced and managed by Launch Forth, a product development community made up of designers, engineers and solvers.
Click here to join the HP Mars Home Planet project and begin the first phase of the Mars Urbanisation challenge.
