Mars Challenge exists to prepare people to decide when reality offers no predetermined answer.

We live at a time when finding an answer is becoming increasingly easy.

Reality, however, does not arrive organised by discipline. It does not tell us which knowledge to apply, which source to trust, which risk to accept, which alternative to choose or who must take responsibility for the consequences.

That is the space in which Mars Challenge works.

We are not trying to replace formal education or simply teach more content. We create conditions in which people with different forms of knowledge must bring them into contact with reality — and with one another.

The aim is deeper: developing the capacity to form judgement, decide, act and take responsibility.

Mars Challenge is an international Space Talent Lab initiative, responsible for the definition, design and stewardship of the programme model.

Virtual Educa is an international strategic ally, contributing particularly to pedagogical support, active methodologies, STEAM+, educator development, visibility and international articulation.

The mission is then activated through a distributed network of national partners, institutions, local organisers, coordinators, educators, mentors, evaluators and communities.

There is no single organisation “doing everything”. There is a common global model brought to life in different local contexts.

Knowledge remains essential.

But possessing knowledge does not automatically mean knowing what to do when the context is uncertain, constraints are real, other people know different things or every decision has consequences.

Mars Challenge therefore seeks to move learning through a progression:

JUDGEMENT → DECISION → ACTION → RESPONSIBILITY

This is what we call Agency.

Agency is not declared. It is trained.

We do not use Mars as an escape from Earth.

We use it as an extreme environment that makes visible what abundance often hides.

In a system with finite resources, every decision matters. People have to identify what is essential, understand interdependencies, accept trade-offs and consider what happens when a system fails.

This logic gives rise to Earth-Back Thinking:

design under extreme conditions to return responsible solutions to Earth.

Mars is the context. Earth is the responsibility.

Mars Challenge is building its learning system around four related concepts.

Earth-Back Thinking Thinking under the constraints of Mars in order to return to Earth with better questions, decisions and solutions.

Agency Turning knowledge into judgement, decision, action and responsibility.

Real-Life Readiness The capacity to bring knowledge, judgement, collaboration and responsibility into contact with reality, particularly when no predetermined answer exists.

Next Human Learning An exploration of how human learning should evolve in a world in which AI and digital systems make answers increasingly abundant without removing the human responsibility to evaluate and decide.

These ideas are not intended to replace education. They seek to bring education closer to the conditions in which knowledge actually has to be used.

Mars Challenge began in 2023.

Its first edition, Genesis, brought together 520 young people from four countries.

The opening question was deliberately extreme: what would it take to keep a human crew alive on Mars?

What began as a challenge became an accumulating journey. Each subsequent edition has put a different life-supporting system under pressure, generating new missions, projects, teams and learning.

By the end of 2025, accumulated Mars Challenge documentation recorded:

2,000+ young people 8 participating countries 240+ documented projects 730+ mentors and educators

These figures demonstrate documented participation at scale. They are not presented as automatic evidence of causal impact.

The more important evidence lies in what people actually do: investigate problems, make decisions, build prototypes, document projects and learn to work across different fields of knowledge.

Mars Challenge is designed to maintain international coherence without requiring every place to operate in exactly the same way.

The central model defines architecture, pedagogical principles, structural rules, evaluation criteria, platform and global narrative.

National partners and local organisers activate the programme in their own contexts.

Institutions mobilise their communities.

Educators and mentors support learning without becoming the authors of participants' projects.

Young people create.

That is how a global system remains connected to local reality.

Adelino Sousa is the founder of Mars Challenge.

Institutional documentation from 2026 also identifies him as Executive Director of Virtual Educa.

Mars Challenge, however, is not built by one person. The system depends on institutions, educators, partners, specialists, organisers and, above all, the young people who turn each mission into a real experience.