If humans follow Curiosity to Mars later this century, we'll need cities modeled on ones that already exist in extreme climates on Earth. Here are six high-tech (and a few low-tech) cities that would have a passing shot at survival in the Martian climate.

We've seen some pretty outlandish conveyances in our day — such as the octopus tank and this spider ride — but these two 50-foot-long, fire-breathing serpents by Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate are something else.

Burning Man 2011 was certainly surfeit with wacky conveyances. There's no way this Dalek art car is street legal, but hey, true Daleks are always riding dirty.

Straight out of Burning Man 2011, it's Duane Flatmo's El Pulpo Mechanico. It's an octopus. It's a steampunk tank. It's a video game boss. It's an avatar of flaming doom. It's a one-metal-cephalopod parade. I wish I could drive it down the turnpike.

Settlers of Catan, that addictive German board game that prompts otherwise normal people to start screaming about wheat and knights and sheep and ore, received a giant-sized treatment at Burning Man 2007 thanks to Julie Von Bergen and Matt Bell. You can see more photos of its construction at Matt's Flickr account, and…

When civilization collapses, it'll be at the hands of 200+ wanton Supermen. They will terraform Earth into one giant desert to facilitate the absorption of the Sun's yellow rays. Then they will pose for photo ops and laugh, laugh, laugh.

At Burning Man, the annual arts festival, mutant vehicles plod across Nevada's Black Rock Desert. And this year's art cars include a fully-functional spider walker, a remote-controlled trilobite, and a mobile mammoth skeleton.

If humans land on Mars by 2037 as NASA hopes, they'll need cities modeled on ones that already exist in extreme climates on Earth. Here are six high-tech (and a few low-tech) cities that would have a passing shot at survival in the Martian climate. Of course there are the obvious choices, like research stations in…