Shabbat (and other times) on Mars

[cellio]

I was recently asked about this, and I don't know what the current thinking is.

The question of when an astronaut observes Shabbat (while in space) is well-understood. [1] But what happens when we colonize other planets and your hometown is on Mars? Do you count six Mars-days and observe the seventh as Shabbat? How long is a month (and how do you decide which moon)? Is it still desirable to stay in sync with Earthly seasons, or will that go out the window? If you follow the sun as locally experienced, what happens when that causes hardship? (Does the lunar colony observe one ~29-day Shabbat every seven months?) There must be commentary on this by now from sources other than Wandering Stars, but I don't know what the popular opinion is.

[1] I know of three opinions for the astronaut in space: follow your hometown, follow the city from which you launched (your port of departure, like for ships), or follow Jerusalem. All of these involve a ~25-hour Shabbat every seven days, like on Earth, even though your orbit might cause you to see a 90-minute day. But the astronaut is, by definition, just visiting.

Comments

[ynyr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and what would you do about some of the things you need for special festivals? And for Sukkot, where would you put the Sukkah? Wouldn't the entire area be enclosed? Would that be like building a Sukkah indoors?
What an interesting question.
Ynyr

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

If the sukkah needed to be outside of the little air-dome or whatever, everyone would be patur(exempt) as a mitztaer (lack of oxygen sure sounds like suffering to me). If they then wanted to build a sukkah in the air-dome, why not? I can see an issue of bal tosif (adding mitzvot, and doing one you are exempt from seems a good example) perhaps.

[geekosaur]

Completely winging it — I suspect the air dome would not be considered "indoors" in such a case, but either an eruv or equivalent to a walled city.