Reverse Pitches: Identifying the Hardest Problems for Mars and Earth
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At the 2025 Mars Innovation Workshop that I hosted through Explore Mars, we set aside a few special sessions to challenge participants to rethink how they approach problem-solving. Why? Because these participants came from a variety of backgrounds, including startups, nonprofits, academic research, public entities, investment, the arts, and the private sector. The workshop was designed to elicit diverse perspectives and experiences and set the stage for them to come together in new and impactful ways.
To that end, instead of pitching solutions, we asked participants to define the most critical, unsolved challenges that must be addressed for humanity to thrive on Mars. This exercise, which we formulated as Reverse Pitches, forced participants to step back from immediate technological fixes and instead focus on the underlying problems that, if solved, would unlock transformative progress—not just for Mars, but for Earth as well.
Rather than framing discussions around existing frameworks like NASA’s Civil Space Shortfalls, here we encouraged far-horizon thinking. We asked participants to identify challenges that might seem impossible today but could become solvable within the coming decades thanks to technological (and dare we say societal) progress. The goal was to find problems so fundamental that they would shape not just survival, but the ability to build a thriving society in space—while delivering value on Earth starting today.
Defining the Right Problems is Harder Than It Seems
One of the first hurdles we encountered was the instinct to jump directly to solutions. Many participants initially focused on existing technologies or incremental improvements rather than identifying the deep, unsolved problems that block progress.
To guide their thinking, we provided a structured framework, asking them to consider:
💡 What is the core problem?
💡 Why is it particularly difficult to solve?
💡 Why is it critical for Mars?
💡 How does solving it also create value on Earth?
This approach helped shift the conversation from surface-level technical challenges to systemic issues that demand breakthrough thinking.
The Hardest Problems We Need to Solve for Mars (and Earth)
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Participants self-selected into groups to focus on key topic areas: health and well-being, food and food production, clean and renewable energy, habitability (with two separate groups tackling different aspects), materials, community life, digital life and work, and infrastructure. Each team worked to define the hardest, unsolved problems in their topic area that will shape life on Mars while delivering value on Earth.
After an intense first session focused solely on identifying audacious problems, participants regrouped to pitch their challenges to the full room. Each team had just three minutes to make the case for their problem: why it remains unsolved, why it is critical for Mars, and how solving it could create meaningful benefits on Earth.
Unlike traditional pitch sessions, where participants try to sell solutions, this exercise forced everyone to stay in the problem space—a shift in thinking that proved both challenging and eye-opening.
Some groups tackled the physical necessities of survival, while others explored the social, economic, and psychological dimensions of building a lasting civilization.
Energy
The Energy team made a compelling case for why indigenous power generation is essential for Mars. Existing space missions rely on imported solar panels and nuclear reactors, but a permanent settlement cannot depend on Earth for energy infrastructure. The team explored the potential for biological power generation, cosmic radiation harvesting, and hybrid energy ecosystems, arguing that breakthroughs in Mars energy solutions could also radically reshape how we generate power on Earth.
Food & Nutrition
The Food & Nutrition team focused on a question that sounds simple but is deceptively complex: What can we grow on Mars? A regenerative, resource-efficient food system will be essential, but it must do more than provide calories. The team emphasized that food plays a vital role in culture, morale, and psychological well-being, meaning that a Martian food system must balance efficiency with variety, adaptability, and social connection. This problem is just as urgent on Earth, where climate change and soil degradation threaten global food security.
Community Life
The Community Life team tackled a challenge that often gets overlooked: How do we design governance and social structures that foster long-term stability and cooperation? They argued that traditional governance models might not work in extreme, isolated environments like Mars communities; they proposed exploring new incentive structures that promote cohesion while preventing factionalism and instability. Clearly, solutions to this problem would positively impact life on Earth, starting today.
Habitability
The Habitability groups approached their problem from two distinct perspectives. One team focused on how to transition from mission-style support to true self-sufficiency, recognizing that current space missions rely heavily on constant oversight from Earth. The other team explored the "threshold of habitability": the moment when a settlement moves beyond mere survival and becomes a thriving community. Both groups saw habitability as an evolving challenge, but one approached it from a logistical standpoint, while the other framed it as a cultural and psychological milestone. The conversation highlighted a deeper question: How do we measure success in space settlement?
Materials
The Materials group presented their problem with humor (yes, there was singing) but made a serious point: everything on Mars must be built from something, and we don’t yet have a clear plan for how to source, process, and recycle materials sustainably. They emphasized that a closed-loop, adaptable materials ecosystem is essential for Mars—and could also revolutionize sustainable manufacturing on Earth.
Infrastructure
The Infrastructure team framed their challenge as an opportunity to rethink utilities—water, power, waste management—from the ground up. Existing infrastructure models are costly, fragile, and heavily dependent on centralized networks. In contrast, Mars provides a testbed for modular, decentralized, and scalable infrastructure solutions, with applications ranging from disaster relief zones to rural communities on Earth.
Health and Well-Being
Finally, the Health and Well-Being team asked a crucial question: Are we humans prepared for the psychological and physiological toll of indefinite survival in isolation? Using the pandemic as a reference point, this team emphasized that mental health isn’t just a side concern; it’s a critical factor in long-term mission success and human sustainability. Their work highlighted the need for proactive strategies to support social resilience, identity, and emotional well-being in extreme environments, with solutions poised to help daily life on Earth, too.
Complexities and Areas of Disagreement
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As each team pitched their Hardest Problem, discussions emerged around how to define "hard problems" and where to set priorities. One of the biggest areas of disagreement centered on what kinds of problems should take priority. Some participants focused on basic survival challenges that must be solved first, such as radiation shielding, food production, and life support. Without these, no settlement could exist. Others argued that civilization-building challenges—governance, community well-being, and economic structures—are equally essential. They pointed out that history shows that societies don’t succeed on infrastructure alone; they need cultural, political, and ethical frameworks.
Another overarching debate arose around the role of AI in life on Mars. Space missions today rely heavily on Earth-based mission control, raising concerns about how much decision-making power should be retained on Earth versus shifting entirely to Mars. Some participants envisioned AI-driven systems optimizing governance, resource allocation, and even dispute resolution to minimize human bias and inefficiency. Others warned that over-reliance on AI could erode human agency, embed biases into decision-making, and create power imbalances if not designed with transparency and oversight. Are human-led structures essential for long-term societal cohesion? The big question is: Should Mars settlements experiment with fully autonomous AI-driven decision-making, or should humans remain central to all major choices?
There was also a divide between those who saw Mars primarily as a technological challenge and those who viewed it as a sociological experiment. Some participants framed Mars as a hardware problem—requiring breakthroughs in energy, materials, and infrastructure—while others emphasized governance, psychology, and human cooperation as the real bottlenecks.
The Infrastructure team sparked a final disagreement over centralized vs. decentralized models. Should Mars rely on large-scale, high-efficiency infrastructure akin to Earth’s cities, or should it develop a decentralized, self-sustaining model with minimal points of failure? The conversation mirrored ongoing debates about urban resilience, smart cities, and decentralized infrastructure on Earth.
And the Hardest Problems Are …
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With the pitches complete, it was time to vote. Each participant had three votes to distribute among the challenges they found most compelling.
The top three Hard Problems at this workshop were:
Energy: How can we develop sustainable, redundant, and autonomous power generation for Mars?
Food & Nutrition: What will a fully regenerative Martian food system look like?
Materials: How can we build, repurpose, and recycle materials in an environment where every resource is precious?
Wouldn’t these Hard Problems make excellent prize challenges, which are powerful ways to motivate innovation? Think about XPRIZE’s ability to “catalyze entire markets by incentivizing entrepreneurship.” Explore Mars has offered to work with the winning teams to further develop their Hard Problems into seeds for future prize challenges.
From Defining Problems to Motivating Action
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As the session wrapped up, participants reflected on the challenge of staying in the problem space. Many admitted it was difficult to hold back from jumping to solutions, but ultimately, this approach led to deeper, more fundamental insights. Some participants noted that in real-world applications and policy, solutions are often implemented before problems are fully understood, leading to wasted resources and unintended consequences. Plus, participants walked away from these sessions with a greater appreciation for the interconnected nature of technical and societal challenges in space.
By taking the time to properly define the hardest problems, these sessions created a roadmap for high-impact innovation, ensuring that the solutions we develop for Mars are solving the right problems—not just the easiest (or most profitable) ones.
And perhaps most importantly, it reinforced the idea that solving for Mars is solving for Earth. Whether tackling energy independence, food security, governance, or infrastructure, the biggest challenges of a Mars community mirror the biggest challenges we face today. If we can get it right in space, we can transform life on our own planet.
What became clear was that Mars isn’t just a technological challenge—it’s a civilization-scale challenge. The solutions we develop for sustaining life on Mars will ultimately shape the future of human expansion into space … and provide new models for addressing Earth’s greatest challenges today.
About Tiffany
Dr. Tiffany Vora speaks, writes, and advises on how to harness technology to build the best possible future(s). She is an expert in biotech, health, & innovation.
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