Astronauts exploring Mars by Manchu

Picture of the Day 14/2/15 - "Sunrise on Mars polar cap" by French sci-fi artist Manchu (Philippe Bouchet).

Astronauts exploring Mars by Kyle Brown

Picture of the Day 7/2/15 - Astronauts trying to find a lost Mars rover by American concept artist Kyle Brown. More of his art here.

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Mars movie review - Stranded (2001)

Stranded (original title in Spanish: Náufragos) is a 2001 low budget Spanish movie about struggle for survival of 5 astronauts stranded on Mars. Not all of them survive till the end.

Story

The movie starts with Mars landing craft crashing on the surface of the planet along with 6 astronauts. The captain of the crew is dead and the remaining 5 are trying to figure out how to survive till the rescue mission could hopefully arrive 26 months later. The resources of food, water, oxygen and energy is limited and the only "solution" seems to be to let survive only 2 of them. So the 3 "expendable" ones are going for a "walk". They reach the edge of the Valles Marineris and descend down. When only 2 of them are left they discover a cave which unexpectedly turn into ancient Martian tunnels with oxygen in them. An unfortunate step into "wrong" tunnel kills 1 of 2 remaining ones. The last surviving women discovers the dead bodies of local Martians and their somehow pressurized (with no visible roof) oasis / ghost town into the depths of Valles Marineris. So she calls the other 2 which had stayed in the landing craft to come and join her. Hopefully they will survive till the rescue comes.

Verdict: 5/10

If the best Mars movie - Total Recall - would be about 1 point short of being "the ideal Mars movie", Stranded is 4 more points bellow that level because of these huge drawbacks:

• the movie is low budget and it definitely feels like being low budget;
• the acting is very poor. You don't get the feeling that characters are actual top-level astronauts/scientists which had been carefully chosen to be the first humans on Mars. Dialogues are clumsy and, despite the movie being quite depressive, the actors don't believably act as being hopelessly stranded millions of miles from Earth with possible rescue coming only years away at best.

Despite that, the concept of the movie is quite interesting (unlike some recent Mars-zombie movies like The last days on Mars with a bigger budget) and Stranded is worth watching for Mars fans.

Here you can watch the trailer of the movie:

My reviews of other movies set on Mars:

• Red Planet (2000)
• Red Faction: Origins TV movie (2011)

The Mars Underground, updated edition

The Mars Underground is a documentary about the dream to get to Mars.. about the disappointment of "space era" kids/youth for NASA not going further after the human landing on Moon on 1969. One of such kids was visionary rocket scientist, the president of The Mars Society Robert Zubrin who with his team has developed his own plan for getting humans to Mars and back - Mars Direct (with updated mission architecture called "Mars Semi-Direct"). They are confident the mission could be carried out in a decade if only NASA would dare to try. It would be the first step for colonizing Mars and thereby making humanity a multi-planet civilization.

As the documentary was released in May, 2007 it doesn't cover the more recent plans for Mars colonization/exploration by SpaceX.

You can watch the most recent version (labeled as "Updated edition/Director's cut") of the film here:

Mars base by Douglas Shrock

Picture of the Day 26/7/14 - Mars base by American sci-fi artist Douglas Shrock (Shrox). More of his Mars art here.

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Entering Mars atmosphere by Manchu

Picture of the Day 15/6/14 - Mars habitat module entering Mars atmosphere with Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) by French sci-fi artist Manchu (Philippe Bouchet).

Setting up a Mars base by Pat Rawlings

Picture of the Day 8/5/14 - Setting up a Mars base (1998) by space illustrator Pat Rawlings.

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Mars base by John J. Olson

Picture of the Day 6/5/14 - Mars base (1992) by NASA's artist John J. Olson.

Red Dragon landing on Mars by SpaceX

Picture of the Day 4/5/14 - Red Dragon (made by SpaceX) landing on Mars.

Astronauts exploring Mars by Sean Brady

Picture of the Day 27/4/14 - "Olympos station" (2007) by Sean Brady from United Kingdom.
Author's description of the scene: Setting up an automated weather station on the lower slopes of Olympus Mons.

Spaceship in Mars orbit by deckard01

Picture of the Day 23/4/14 - Spaceship in Mars orbit (2013) by computer graphics artist deckard01.

Astronauts exploring Mars by Ren Wicks

Picture of the Day 15/4/14 - A classic work "Mars mission" (1990) by American artist Ren Wicks. More of his Mars art here.

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Mars rover by Walter Myers

Picture of the Day 13/4/14 - Mars exploration rover by sci-fi artist Walter Myers. Watch more of his art here.

Race to Mars - TV movie about first human mission to Mars

Race to Mars is a two part TV movie about first human mission to Mars in 2030. The movie was made by Discovery Channel Canada in 2007. It is as scientific as it can be and covers almost all possible problems which can occur in such mission (even being too harsh if you ask my opinion). Although it is not officially stated - Race to Mars is heavily based (with modifications of course) on now canceled Constellation mission design of NASA.

Astronaut working on Mars by unknown artist

Picture of the Day 10/4/14 - Can anyone point me out the author of this Mars artwork? Leave in comments...

Astronauts exploring Valles Marineris by Sean Brady

Picture of the Day 7/4/14 - Exploration of Valles Marineris (2009) by Sean Brady from United Kingdom.

Astronauts exploring Noctis Labyrinthus by Pat Rawlings

Picture of the Day 2/4/14 - A classic work "in Noctis Labyrinthus" (1989) for NASA by Pat Rawlings.

Maybe it's You there climbing? ;)

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ISECG strategy for long-range human space exploration

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) is a forum of 14 most advanced government space agencies - ASI (Italy), CNES (France), CNSA (China), CSA (Canada), CSIRO (Australia), DLR (Germany), ESA (European Space Agency), ISRO (India), JAXA (Japan), KARI (Republic of Korea), NASA (United States of America), NSAU (Ukraine), Roscosmos (Russia), UKSA (United Kingdom). Its main goal is to advance a long-range human space exploration strategy.

On August, 2013 12 ISECG member agencies (including NASA) released the most recent update to the Global Exploration Roadmap. The summary can be seen in this infographic:

On April 10-11, 2014 NASA plans to host a workshop to discuss the updates to this roadmap.

Hope, the private pioneers like SpaceX, Mars One and others will speed up those plans a bit!

Infographics: Missions to Mars

Here are some of the best infographics I have found about past missions to Mars from 1960 to 2013, both failed and successful.