Abstract
The start of the century marked the beginning of a new era of scientific goals and technological achievements in space technologies, together with the new visions of space exploration ambitions. The enterprising plans of space travels and creation of first human settlement on Mars are frequently presented as the next proverbial giant leap for humankind. The chapter focuses on private space programmes and considers the motivations for future exploration of Mars from a sociocultural perspective. Further, it discusses why Mars is of such importance to public imagination today. In presenting a socio-science fiction, and regarding science as the primary mode of operating of such endeavour, the chapter argues that the Martian colonists will need to live in the extreme environments, survive unprecedented scenarios and in a way become organisms that thrive in extreme conditions, extremophiles, themselves.
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Capova, K.A. (2019). Human Extremophiles: Mars as a Camera Obscura of the Extraterrestrial Scientific Culture. In: Szocik, K. (eds) The Human Factor in a Mission to Mars. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02059-0_6
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