Mars: One Day on the Red Planet

Was really excited to see this and I switched it on with my daughter (7) who is really interested in space exploration. What was promised are "never before seen images" and what appeared to be a lot of story on Opportunity Rover.

Now the first part isn't hard to do because there are thousands of images so showing something new isn't difficult, but they go into such details on the wrong info - the names of the places are hard to remember (not their fault but why make the show too scientific), have rando people show their face and make comments about it, these intercuts totally take away the experience of seeing pictures of Mars because let's be frank I don't want to see a close up of some lady if I am watching a show about Mars! The show claims they use satellite footages to recreate Mars - it wasn't impressive - the CGI are rather poor and perhaps fake. The top-down image are real but the others were re-created from these so they are not 100% correct and just look lousy. Not as "amazing" as they keep telling you.

As for the Rover story, it takes maybe 5 minutes screentime. It's still probably the best part but nothing new. Instead one should find a documentary on Opportunity Rover. It's almost sad it stayed up there 14 years and eventually broke. If you children saw WALL-E they will see a connection.

In the end "One Day" has nothing to do with the show either, they just place an hour timer in-between sequences that are unrelated to anything. Don't waste your time.

This is a fascinating review of what we have learned about Mars from 1894 to 2020, and what we hope to learn. It does a good job of showing what Mars is like, and explaining how the current rover's search for signs of past life on Mars fits into the history of Mars study and exploration.

Ok I could only handle a few minutes of the narrators weird monotone voice before I had to turn it off. Yikes they should have gotten a good narrator not some guy who speaks in a monotone voice that kinda cracks and stuff at weird times. Ugh.

After watching this show, I was even more convinced that the idea of a mission to Mars is many years ahead and the idea of colonizing it is questionable.

As a young child who grew up during the popularity of the science fiction classics such as Star Trek, Doctor Who and Lost in Space which all coincided with the very real science events of the Apollo moon landings in the early 1970's, the concept of Space travel or Space exploration was intriguing. This was all backed up by the earlier Hollywood classics that came out in the 1950's i.e. "Forbidden Planet" and "This Island Earth".

After the Apollo program was wrapped up, the next NASA project of major significance were the landings on Mars in 1976 by the Viking probes and the following year the launching of the Voyager deep space satellite's 1 and 2 which are still sending back data almost 50 years later.

The Viking missions were significant because for the first time we were able to see photos of another world and unlike the grey monochrome surface of the moon and the earie blackness above, the photos of Mars showed an rocky orange/red surface and the sky above was bright and had a pink tint to it. It was all very exciting and in 1980 Ray Bradbury's book the "Martian Chronicles" which was originally written in the 1950's was adapted as a tv mini series. In 1981 the long awaited space shuttle program finally got off the ground and was a major leap forward because unlike the Apollo missions the shuttle itself would land back on earth to be used again. Although there were some great images of it taking off and wonderful photos of it around the earth it was a bit of a disappointment as that program was mostly about traveling in the earth's orbit rather than space exploration but nevertheless was a huge part of NASA's budget which eventually wound up in 2011. The Voyager missions during the 1980'sand 1990's sent back amazing images of the planets in our solar system and both have moved out into deep space many years ago.

By the 1990's the Hubble space telescope came into operation and managed to send back stunning images of outer space light years away from the earth and this was followed by the James Webb telescope which could see even further with greater detail too. One of the fascinating results of these was the ability to not only see new solar systems and galaxies but also other planets that revolved around their suns. With the aid of computer modelling these discovered planets are at the right distance from their sun that could have the right environment not only to have life on it but possibly to support Human life.

It's nearly 60 years since the first landing on the moon and although we know a lot more about our solar system and the universe as a whole, there are even more questions than answers. Also, unless humanity is able to invent a much faster form of propulsion in space it seems that we'll all be grounded in our solar system for the foreseeable future. For the space shuttle to reach Alpha Centuria which is our nearest star and planetary system under the current available speed would take about 150,000 years. In addition the planet Keppler 452b discovered by the Hubble telescope would take us at current speeds 30 million years to get to. So it's only our solar system which we can as humans explore.

That in itself poses problems too, i.e. To get to Jupiter's moons which has been talked about would be 6 years and to get to Saturn's moons would take about 3 years. Venus on the other hand would take about 150 days to get there but because its too close to the sun it would be a dangerous almost suicidal mission because of the volcanic activity and hostile environment. The only other Planet which we could explore in our solar system would be Mars which is only six to nine months away.

It would explain why over the last 25 - 30 years Hollywood and the tech billionaires have been focused on Mars as the next destination for humanity as everything else in our solar system is currently out of reach or just too far away to be thoroughly explored. Yet although Mars is relatively close to us and an obvious opportunity to explore there certainly hasn't been any rush to get there. There are obvious reasons for that - the logistical difficulties for a Mars mission are just simply too complicated and the costs involved would be astronomical.

However, one gets the feeling that there are other more critical reasons there has never been an attempt to land humans on the red planet. To turn this around, if it had been discovered decades ago that Mars had an atmosphere we could breath in, running water that was drinkable, soil that could be used to grow food and we didn't require a space suit we would already be there by now.

In 2021 the rover Perseverance with its miniature helicopter Endurance transmitted back some stunning and amazing images from Mars. The 3D photos had a great definition and you felt like you were there, one could almost touch the surface of Mars. The panoramic views with the sun in the distance and the endless mountains and rocky terrain that goes on for miles is very impressive . However the problem is after a while the images eventually look identical which just reinforces the fact that there are no signs of life. Add to it the silence and the inability to see any remains of a past civilization just underscores the fact that it is a dead planet. What if it was always a dead planet and doesn't have any water that is drinkable or that the building blocks of life that we have on earth just don't exist?? Of course, NASA would say that's what we want to find out - therefore more missions and eventually a human expedition will have to be mounted. My observation is that I think we already know, and no number of trips would satisfy the scientific community who would want missions to Mars to continue indefinitely.

Despite talk of travelling to Mars and colonizing the planet - the reality is there is no way that Mars could be colonized as it's totally incompatible for humans to live on. You simply couldn't survive on Mars without a space suit or shelter that could stand up to the high winds and sandstorms. There is no breathable air, it's constantly being bombarded with radiation; put it this way there probably 5 or 6 ways that you would die very quicky without the appropriate protection, the only question is which one would be the first. One wonders why this is all taken seriously, if it is at all. It seems that there is a conflation between science fiction and current science reality which has distorted our ability to think rationally about what humanity is capable of.

Its more likely that the Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos dream of flying out to the cosmos is exactly that - a dream. It's more likely that their space missions will center around space tourism for the rich play boys and play girls, firstly in the earths orbit and then eventually trips to the moon. That's certainly all feasible in the next few years but a trip to Mars is much further away. Although there would be plenty of volunteers to take such a mission - even with the possibility of it being a one-way expedition. The reason for a mission to Mars is just simply bragging rights, it's there, so we must go there just say we have been there, because by nature we are explorers.

I'm a sucker for space science. I can get past the misleading ads and bait and switch plotlines as long as it looks cool and I learn something. There are two things that ruined this one for me.

One of the most important parts of any documentary is the narrator. I mean no disrespect to the fellow. I'm sure there's a good place for one who tries too hard to make the voice sound deeper, enunciates more harshly to make it seem more exciting and drones on so much that it takes away from the incredible imagery and discoveries.

Then the "trend"... it started with America's Dumbest Criminals and has become a huge part of everything else. To break up a boring show add clips of people giving insight or opinion. They could be experts, wing-nuts, folks who have little or nothing to do with the program at all. Granted once in awhile there's a gem, a cute face, a tidbit of some sort, but a skillfully written and narrated documentary should hold your interest without having to resort to the latest tricks.

Halfway through I started looking at my watch and taking breaks. Just before the end I turned off the sound. Those images are what I came for anyway, and they were great!