Imagine Mars
Mars from high orbit: a rust-red globe against black space, Valles Marineris cutting a dark scar across the equator.

Imagine Mars

First-principles notes on crust, ice, power, Starship, and the silicon backbone that makes return possible.

Read the researchWatch the films

Crustal gap

32 km

thickness delta

Exchangeable ice

20–30 m

global equivalent

Surface load

3.6 MW

continuous

Return propellant

2,400 MT

LOX / LCH4

39A cadence

24 / yr

tanker launches

Starship S40 in orbit over a sunlit Earth: heatshield tiles and stainless flank, the ship stretching toward the curved horizon.

Vehicle · SpaceX published figures · August 2026

Starship

Fully reusable. Methane and oxygen. Tankers in LEO, then Mars. The published vehicle is 124 meters of stainless and 33 Raptor 3s. This desk keeps the surface loads that vehicle still has to close.

Stack height
124 m
Diameter
9 m
Payload, reusable
100+ t
Super Heavy
72 m
The road to Mars
Desk still: a dark coastal curve under a dashed freefall arc. Not a SpaceX flight photo.

Starship · 8 min

Starship Flight 14

A window is not a flown log. Pending regulatory approval is still pending.

Read the paper
A dense star field over a dark horizon — the view this desk argues we have to reach.

Manifesto

A single planet is an unacceptable failure mode

Consciousness trapped on one world is a brief accident. Ice, power, Starship, and the TeraFab files are the loads that have to close.

Read the manifesto

On this desk

The Rock That Broke Open Mars

A rover wheel fractured an ordinary stone in Gediz Vallis. Inside: yellow crystals no mission had confirmed on Mars — native elemental sulfur.

Watch the film
Desk still: a dark coastal curve under a dashed freefall arc. Orbit is a speed, not a height. Not a SpaceX flight photo.

Starship · 8 min

Starship to Orbit

Starbase, Louisiana

Starship · 7 min

Starbase, Louisiana

Observatory

Gallery
Desk still: a dark coastal curve under a dashed freefall arc. Not a SpaceX flight photo.Desk still: a dark coastal curve under a dashed freefall arc. Orbit is a speed, not a height. Not a SpaceX flight photo.Mars from high orbit: a rust-red globe against black space, Valles Marineris cutting a dark scar across the equator.Mars’s crustal dichotomy: smooth northern lowlands meeting the cratered southern highlands.Jezero crater’s ancient river delta, layered sediment fans on the crater floor.Late-afternoon Martian dunes, long shadows on pale dust under a thin salmon sky.A stainless-steel Starship standing on a dusty Martian plain at sunset, its shadow stretched across the ground.A speculative green Mars: darkened lowlands and a pale ocean covering much of the northern hemisphere.

Dispatch

From the timeline

Follow @LaceyPresley

2026-09-18

Starship Flight 14

2026-09-15

Starship to Orbit

2026-08-19

The Martian Dichotomy

2026-08-19

A single planet is a failure mode

2026-08-19

Specialist models are another 100×