LIFE ON MARS
Oh man! / Look at those cavemen go.
A friend of mine, a Welsh man in his 60s, recounted to me the best part of his week: “I woke up in the middle of the night, went outside, and took a piss in the garden underneath the stars. When you get to my age, you realize there’s nothing better.”
This man has never been to Mars, but if he came, he would like it here. Every night is a night to piss under the stars. In the morning, the sand along the periphery of Mars is pepperonied with little darkened divots.
Living on Mars at Mars College is considerably easier than living on Mars the planet, but it comes with limited creature comforts. Every year we build the Mars campus out of pallet racks and plywood. Any accommodations or amenities that we want, we have to build or bring in. At the end of the three-month season, we unbuild and take everything away.
This kind of living can be challenging (cold, hot, windy, dusty, dry, wet), but you get to live close to friends, to the environment. In an interesting town, in an interesting ecosystem (geologically, politically, economically). You get to learn about the shape of the waveform of the energy draw of a refrigerator.
THE DESERT
Some geologic time ago, the land was the bed of a giant inland sea, the terrain flat and low – about 200 feet below sea level. To this day it’s still covered with millions of tiny white shells. Once under water, it’s now starved for moisture. On the rare occasion it does rain, the soil doesn’t absorb it. The water sits on the surface, creating a very sticky clay. Great chunks of it cling to your shoes, your tires, quickly making driving in or out impossible.
In preparing to live on Mars, think of it as a three month through-hike without all the walking. We’re camped in the Southern California desert (two hours south of Joshua Tree) from January to April. In January, the struggle is with the cold. Low 40s Fahrenheit (4-5 degrees Celsius) at night. By March the challenge is the heat with temperatures sometimes climbing 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit (32-37 C). (In January, we seal up our buildings to prevent drafts, and by March we’re punching holes in the walls to create them.) Those temperatures are relatively mild for many parts of the world, but our buildings are not heated, insulated, or air conditioned.
One of the biggest weather challenges living on Mars is the wind. Dust storms are a common occurrence and can flatten tents and pick up anything not strapped down. The dust particles are very fine and find their way into everything. Dust masks and goggles are essential.
THE TOWN
Mars is a twenty-minute walk away from the town of Bombay Beach. It has an actual beach on the shore of the Salton Sea, the largest inland body of water in California. The view is stunning, but the last water skier left about 50 years ago.
The Salton Sea was created by an engineering disaster in 1905. The California Development Company dug canals in order to divert the Colorado River for irrigation. The temperamental river broke its bounds and for two years poured into the low Salton Sink.
It took two years for the CDC to fix the mistake. The fresh water of the Colorado River no longer flowed into the Salton Sea, but flood irrigation – the practice of flooding farms – kept the water level mostly stable. (Although the incoming water now included a steady stream of fertilizers and pesticides, causing the salination levels to rise.) This new sea became a haven for migrating birds and for opportunistic developers. Bombay Beach was created as a resort town. From 1950 to 1970, it was a flourishing desert oasis, complete with movie stars and gangsters on vacation from Los Angeles. It was the California Riviera, until the fish started to die.
The rising salinity levels – plus massive algae blooms – drove down oxygen levels, eventually choking the fish. (Similar to what has happened recently in Australia.) The sea is also evaporating, concentrating the salt. From 2002 to 2017 the sea shrank ~40 feet per year. In 2017, when the flood irrigation stopped, the sea started shrinking at nearly 120 feet per year. As the sea shrinks, the dust – which was a problem anyway – gets worse.
The town of Bombay Beach today has a population of around 200, with fewer living there year-round. There’s one restaurant/bar, one coffee shop, and one small market. (The nearest grocery store is in Indio, a 50-minute drive away.) Artists have populated the beach with sculptures and/or trash depending on your tastes or who you talk to.
The sunsets are incredible.
AMENITIES
Housing
Many Martians bring their own housing, whether that’s an RV, a tricked-out van, or their cars modified to sleep in. Depending on your Living Co-Op (more on that later), housing may also be provided for you. We’ll be building some temporary shelters – dorms – out of plywood. There will also be tents that can be deployed inside of plywood wind barriers.
Every year we build some variety of buildings: kitchens, hang out spaces, classrooms, a dojo. Everyone participating in Mars will be part of a build crew. Prior experience in building/carpentry is welcomed but not required.
We schlep filtered water in from town in IBC cubes and five-gallon jugs. All of our power comes from solar panels and batteries. We have access to wifi.
Bathrooms, Showers, Laundry
We rent porta potties that are cleaned out regularly. For showers, in years past, we’ve used showers in town. This year, however, we’re trying to bring all the amenities out to Mars. This will likely mean building a shower block with solar bag showers. Likewise for laundry – in years past, we’ve been doing our laundry in town, but this year we’re looking to figure out a system for washing and line drying our clothes in the desert.
Living Co-Ops
Every Martian living on Mars will join a living co-op. Living Co-ops are how Martians band together for daily life needs, look out for people in their group, and make sure everyone has access to necessary services like water, laundry, showers, cooking space, grocery access, etc. People in the same Living Co-Op may live close to each other, and/or have some kind of communal meal system. Depending on vibe and interest, Living Co-Ops can be like a tight-knit mini-intentional community experience, or be relatively chill and loose, but there for the critical things.
The Living Co-Ops currently planning on existing on Mars are:
Freeside. Freeside is open to Martians from any academic focus. They will be providing housing for those Freesiders who need it, a kitchen, and a cozy hang out space. They will be implementing a group meal plan consisting of a shared weekly grocery runs with optional communal dinners. Freeside may be for you if you’re interested in communal living, in sharing chores and hang out space, in cooking and other cozy domesticities while still valuing independence and flexibility in your personal projects and schedule.
Community Lab. Community lab is a group of 5 - 10 people focused on community living and all that comes with it. Co-op members will arrive at Mars together, build their own living spaces (aligned with community design), a kitchen and a cozy living room.
Another offering of Community Lab will be to build and steward a large movement and embodiment centered classroom space called “the dojo”. Here you’ll find workshops focused on bodywork, movement practices, relating, conflict navigation, intimacy and creativity. The dojo will be a public building that any Martian can offer workshops, and as a co-op member, you will be encouraged to hold workshops to the greater mars community. They will have shared chores, food shopping and meal plans and daily sharing circles and check ins. They’re playing with offering some form of a service of conflict navigation and space holding for other co-ops. Everyone joining our co-op will be a part of another event in Sweden during the next summer, which we will be preparing for during mars. To check out that event, click here: communitylab.life.
AI Camp. The Creative AI camp will be a group of residents interested in using AI techniques to create media. We will study things such as agentic coding, filmmaking and storytelling, game development, and AI embodiment. The Eden team will be there, and will be sponsoring AI students with compute and resources to create with AI. Those of us running the Creative AI Program at Mars College are determined to make shelter available to participants living on Mars. Most likely the living part of this will be a 12’x8’ very rough shack made from pallet racks and plywood. It’ll have a door and one or two windows and a mattress. Much of the finishing touches will be up to the inhabitants like dust proofing, water proofing, adding lights, and furniture. In past years some people have put tents inside the pallet racks for another layer of protection. Others have built furniture and elaborate decorations.
Additionally we plan to have some kind of kitchen set-up that is mostly weather proof and has a few mini-fridges and a sink and a couple of camp stoves and what not. The specifics of how this operates will depend on who ends up being part of the AI Camp. As organizers we intend to make it possible to thrive in the Desert. But the actual effort and form that takes will need to come from the participants themselves.
These Living Co-Ops – if they haven’t already – will likely be writing more in depth explanations of what they’re about in future substack posts. Stay tuned.
If you are a Martian alumnus and would like to organize a living co-op for Mars 2026, please fill out this form.
IN CONCLUSION
Living on Mars comes with fewer creature comforts than living on-grid in a house or in an apartment. And yet, every year we cook delicious meals, work on projects, do yoga, throw parties, have cozy movie nights. There’s even a relaxing hot springs/mud pot nearby (that has carpet on the bottom of it). The impact and importance of the weather makes it easier to be mindful of what’s happening now. You become much more aware of the cycles of the moon. And when the weather’s good, you can walk around barefoot and see for miles. It’s not the easiest place to live, and yet every year, people keep coming back.
It's a lot of time outside, with friends, and of course, if you want, a lot of opportunity to go piss under the stars.
