Designing for Earth-to-Mars Family Communication

Feeling co-present and connected over distance is a challenge, especially when living on Mars. We speculate about a potential future where people living on Mars are separated from their families on Earth, and wish to feel connected with them. A key challenge when designing for communication with Mars is the delay in transmitting information, which makes traditional communicationmethods like phone conversations or video calls infeasible.We examine different methods of connecting distance-separated families on Earth and provide insight into how these would need to be adjusted to account for the delay of communicating with Mars. Specifically, we look at systems for visual, auditory, and haptic togetherness.