Your new life on Mars, living in a 3D-printed egg made from rocks

Forget the weird, inflatable habitats you’ve seen in sci-fi movies. Your future Martian house could actually feel a lot like home here on Earth (even if it looks totally different)

In 2020, the promise of escaping Earth has never been more tantalizing. Our planet is facing a climate emergency  as the world burns; entire countries have been put into lockdown over coronavirus pandemic fears; nuclear weapons treaties are unraveling, bringing us closer to the threat of nuclear war … and if that’s not enough to make you want to get the hell out of Dodge, there’s another US election this year. Save us.

Though the scientists and technological innovators of the world are working on solutions to save us from the apocalypse , the only viable answer might be to ditch this planet and make our way to a new one.

The world’s billionaires are already working on an exit strategy. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is planning to send tourists into space, but others are more ambitious. Jeff Bezos wants us to live in massive space colonies beyond the realm of Earth. SpaceX intends to put its first private citizen in space in 2023, and CEO Elon Musk already has big plans for settling humans on Mars and making us a truly “multiplanet species.” And NASA, the space race pioneer that first put us on the moon? The agency is forging ahead into the next era of space travel — its Artemis program is already well on its way to putting the first woman and the next man on the moon, before heading on to Mars itself. 

But regardless of whether a government space agency or a private company makes it to Mars first, what will life be like when we get there?

How will we grow food, survive cosmic radiation and deal with the crippling loneliness of being so far from Earth? And most importantly, where will we actually live on our new home planet?

One company has created a habitat that may well be the solution to surviving and thriving on Mars: a 3D-printed, egg-shaped home called Marsha.

Hacking the Apocalypse is CNET’s new documentary series digging into the science and technology that could save us from the end of the world. You can check out our episodes on Pandemic, Nuclear Winter, Global Drought, Tsunamis, Cryonics and Escaping the Planet and see the full series on YouTube.