The Mars job you (might) already have

The future of Mars colonization isn’t in the job postings. It’s in the time logs.

When researchers run Mars analog missions—those months-long simulations in Hawaiian lava fields or Arctic stations—they track everything. Who does what, when, for how long. The results are telling: about 20% of crew time goes to specialized technical work. The other 80%? Cooking meals. Fixing broken equipment. Managing supplies. Teaching each other new skills. Cleaning the habitat. Again and again.

The million-person Mars city everyone imagines won’t be built by a million rocket scientists. It’ll be built by people who know how to keep things running when the nearest hardware store is 140 million miles away.

The pattern of frontier labor

This isn’t new. Look at any frontier town in history—from Roman outposts to American railroad camps to Antarctic research stations. The ratio holds: for every specialist doing the headline work, you need four people doing the work that makes work possible.

The California Gold Rush needed more blacksmiths than miners. The transcontinental railroad needed more cooks than engineers. The International Space Station needs more logistics coordinators than physicists.

Mars will need more maintenance workers than Mars will need astronauts.

The difference is the stakes. On Earth, a broken water recycler means calling a plumber. On Mars, it means you have 72 hours to become one.

The competence stack

Here’s a mental model: think of skills not as specialties but as stacks. Your specialty sits on top—that’s what gets you hired. But underneath needs to be a foundation of general competence that keeps you alive.

A Mars geologist needs to know rocks, yes. But they also need to know:

• How to diagnose a failing air scrubber
• How to grow food in regolith
• How to teach calculus to colony kids
• How to repair a pressure suit
• How to cook for 20 with limited ingredients

The stack matters more than the specialty. Because when something breaks at 3 AM during a dust storm, nobody cares about your PhD. They care if you can fix it.

This is already how remote sites work. Antarctic researchers cross-train constantly. Submarine crews learn each other’s jobs. Oil rig workers become generalists by necessity. Mars just takes this principle and removes the safety net.

Your Mars audit

Take ten minutes. Write two lists:

List 1: What you’re paid to do Your official job description. Your specialty. The thing on your business card or LinkedIn headline.

List 2: What you actually do Every task that fills your day. The problems you solve without thinking. The things people come to you for that aren’t in your job description.

Now imagine you’re staffing a Mars base. Which list matters more?

You might discover that you’re more Mars-ready than you thought. Think about the IT manager who grows tomatoes, or the accountant who fixes vintage motorcycles, or the teacher who meal-preps for their family of six? Bingo.

The future doesn’t need you to become someone else. It needs you to become more of who you already are—just with higher stakes and better cross-training.

Still thinking a Mars job requires a complete career change? You might already be interviewing.

Bonus points: Think about the skills you have that an AI agent can’t do.