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space

It’s tricky getting to Mars. The voyage takes months, your spacecraft has to perform some delicate manoeuvres along the way and then – there is Mars itself! It has not been a welcoming world. Almost 50 missions have been launched to the red planet by a host of different nations and space agencies. Some 30 of these have failed or enjoyed only very limited success.

It seems like everyone’s talking about sending people to Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has just found evidence of liquid water on Mars today, Ridley Scott’s The Martian is bringing the Red Planet to life in our cinemas and you can see a spacesuit designed for use on Mars in our Cosmonauts exhibition. There is hope that we’ll be sending people to Mars for real in the next few decades – but when they go, will they be ready for […]