Well, actually they do make sense in a way. For a start they would be designated 'landing bowls' and the con-cave shape is designed to act as a blast filter both when landing and when taking off, although I will readily admit that such sites should be further from habitation in case of a launch or landing accident. This is a Stage One colony and its resources are pretty much rough and ready - in time, and with improvements in hardware and services, a craft might be landing in a dedicated silo constructed out of rammed packed soil or custom-manufactured bays which are outfitted with loading/unloading ramps and service gantries and of course blast-bunkers to protect personnel from incidents and accidents.



I'll have to make assumptions here about the technology, but it looks very much as if the craft have their own cranes for loading and unloading cargo. As for the infamous Martian dust and of course the storms, well - dust happens and a storm of any significant size would indeed lay down a layer of dust which would be removed by a mobile unit outfitted with a blade much as a snow-removing vehicle on Earth is used to clear roads after snowfalls, with emphasis on forming spiraling patterns of dust on removal and building the dust up into walls around the silo, although it would also be useful to collect this dust and use it in structural work, once again compacting it and augmenting it to make a form of Martian concrete for constructing purposes.