Horizon: Mars: A Traveller’s Guide
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Hats off to the producers of Horizon, whose efforts to provide novel routes into hard science and make apparently forbidding information understandable for the casual viewer are impressively diligent and tireless. This fun premise, narrated by an uncharacteristically gruff Mark Gatiss, offers a survey of the Red Planet for those of us who may one day walk its surface. This is not as fanciful a notion as it may appear, with many experts believing that the first person to set foot on Mars is alive today.
Certainly, Mars: A Traveller’s Guide does a fine job of showcasing the jaw-dropping pace of scientific advances, musing on how humans could survive such an environment both physically and psychologically, and how the climate is being recreated for Earth-bound experiments testing everything from potential communication methods to the durability of spacesuits. Along the way, expect remarkable imagery of the planet’s sculpted peaks, gigantic craters and ravines that dwarf our own Grand Canyon, as well as a laboratory’s worth of articulate, enthusiastic boffins and, yes, a certain amount of speculation over whether there is indeed life on Mars. Gabriel Tate