Out of 100 designs of Martian colonies submitted by participants from all over the world, the Mars Society chose only ten. Their authors will travel to the USA to present their solutions in detail. Two Polish teams, both comprising students from our university, made it to the Mars Colony Prize finals.

The Polish ideas for the Martian residential estate are "Ideacity" and "Twardowsky”. They qualified for the finals next to projects developed by Russians, Swedes, Americans, as well as French and Swiss contenders and now will be presented before the competition jury at the Mars Society Convention to be held in mid-October at the University of Southern California.

The three best projects will be announced on the evening of October 19. Their authors will be rewarded with prize money of 10, 5 and 2.5 thousand dollars, respectively. All semi-finalists - 25 teams selected by the jury in May - can also publish articles on their solutions in the book entitled "Mars Colonies: Plans for Settling the Red Planet".

The Mars Society expected the participants of the contest to design a self-sufficient Martian colony for a thousand people. The space settlement is supposed import as few goods as possible from Earth and, at the same time, produce goods for export in order to support itself. It must produce food for its inhabitants, as well as building materials needed for its gradual development and, and also energy, clothing, vehicles, machinery, and all everyday use products - just like in a typical city on Earth.