Red Planet, Blue Ocean
Mars settlement as a technology wave for startups. MSC 2025, Los Angeles.
Space settlement work
Portfolio
Talks, design papers, and video — slides and speech notes beside each entry when available.
Featured designs
From the drawing board
Flagship concepts — open the design page or the slide deck.
2019
Eureka — Mars City
1,000-person settlement concept for the Mars Society Colony Prize.
Design page →
2020
Hebes Chasma
Para-terraforming - Architecture and Biology of covering a Lake Erie sized canyon on Mars
Slides PDF →
2025
Lunar Halo
Polar rover land-train for permanently shadowed craters (NASA Design award winner).
Slides PDF →Full archive
Talks & papers
Lunar Halo (polar rover)
Rover concept for permanently shadowed lunar south polar craters; adaptable to early Mars outposts. MSC 2025. (NASA Design award winner)
Mars Sample Return — New Concepts
Panel with Tony Muscatello (NASA, ret.) — updated MSR concepts. MSC 2024, Seattle.
EVA Link — Analog Long-Range Communications
Long-range digital communications and tracking for MDRS; Archipelago Space Research. MSC 2024.
The Mars Age — The Good, the Bad, and the AI
AI’s impact on Mars settlement plans and daily thinking. MSC 2023 (conference live feed; jumps to talk).
Agile Space Analogs as Progress Accelerators
Agile and modularity for Mars analogs as accelerators. MSC 2023 (conference live feed; jumps to talk).
Independence — Mapping a Multi-Planetary Species
Minimum viable independent planet from first principles. MSC 2022, Arizona.
Accelerate Like Elon 2.0
Updated survey of methods at Tesla and SpaceX. MSC 2022; video is the longer AIAA Houston version.
FlexSail — Engineering Tech Revolutions
SECADS methodology with advanced solar sail case study. MSC 2021.
Insight Lunar / Mars Surface Base
Bridge from Lunar Starship to large construction outposts. MSC slides (centrifuge detail); separate Moon Society video.
Para-Terraforming Hebes Chasma
Architecture and biology of covering a Lake Erie“sized canyon on Mars.
Starship Logistics Ports
Modular deep-space settlements from Starship components, LEO to the belt.
Eureka — Mars City Design
1,000-person settlement for the Mars Society Colony Prize; published in Mars Colonies.
Starlink’s Children — Deep Space
Starlink-class technology for solar-system probes and infrastructure.
Mars Talk — Episode 6
Interview on launch systems, Artemis budget, Raptors, and colony design sneak peek.
Accelerate Like Elon 1.0
Reverse-engineering SpaceX innovation pace. Widely viewed via Next Big Future coverage.
Planetary Protection and Space Settlement
Path for Mars surface settlement with least risk to science and the Earth biosphere.
Risk Reduction Missions for Space Settlement
Near-term projects to expand human activity into deep space with minimal cost and risk.
Rapid Space Development / NewSpace Tech Revolution
Nature of technology revolutions and expansion into the solar system.
A Detailed Modern Space Economy
Blockchain, phased IP, distributism, and space settlement economics. MSC 2016.
Space Settlement Laboratory
Modular factory in high lunar orbit for rapid prototyping of settlement tech.
Here to Ceres — Overcoming Barriers
Challenges of space settlement and a path of least resistance. Forerunner of the economy and lab talks above.
Modeling Interplanetary / Interstellar Culture
Economic and communication issues of settlement; 100 Year Starship Symposium lineage.
Constructing the MDRS Science Dome
Time-lapse of the crew building the new Science Dome at Mars Desert Research Station — intended as a greenhouse at the time.
Sensio
NASA Hack Night at Adler Planetarium (Creative Commons). Augmenting limited spacesuit perception with AR, drone, AI, and telepresence so the astronaut is environmentally hypersensitive rather than isolated.
HexHab — Analog Space Settlement
Modular, scalable, portable analog habitats (Atacama / building-code“friendly revision of the MDRS-style base concept).
Mini-Mission Modules
Spacecraft interiors for extreme reliability and adaptability at minimal cost. Conference video is hard to follow (camera on speaker); Kindle book has full detail.
Spacesuit Equipment Loading
Where to carry tools and gear in real and simulated surface suits — from MDRS Crew 124 command experience.
Historic Cosmology and Exploration
Western cosmologies and why we explore; JBIS paper lineage (100 Year Starship).
Orbital Refueling (Pykrete station)
Reinforced ice propellant storage on orbit — protection and deep-space logistics.
Micro-Settlement Architecture
Microcolony agriculture — self-sufficient architecture in minimal spaces; cosmic-ray“protected shelter with permaculture and aquaponics.
This page is the primary archive for talks and papers listed above. Additional conference live-feed video may exist where a dedicated cut is not listed.
From the field
MDRS Crew 329
Selfies and field moments from the Mars Desert Research Station mission.
