MARS: Are You Ready to Colonize the Red Planet?

Fans and space enthusiasts will bear witness to a global television event set to redefine how humanity sees on-air storytelling. National Geographic Channel and FOX Networks Group will bring viewers to Mars with a six-part series.

MARS is pegged as a science-cum-sci-fi documentary series, and tackles a fictional manned mission to the Red Planet in 2033. Fictionalized events are bridged by interviews. These feature some of the world’s leading scientific minds and experts on space travel and Martian studies.

The show offers hour-long spectacles comprised of film-quality scripted drama, visual effects and a powerful documentary. Global science personality and entrepreneur Elon Musk will also lead the documentary’s scientific minds. They hope to enlighten viewers on the real status of the mission to colonize the Red Planet.

“MARS is a first-of-its-kind program in that it fuses fact with fiction, based on scientific data and predictions,” Lucien Harrington, SVP of Marketing & Communications for the FOX Networks Group in Asia said.

MARS stars personalities such as South Korea multimedia artist JiHAE as Mission Pilot Hana Seung, and Ben Cotton (Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, Chronicles of Riddick) as Mission Commander Ben Sawyer. They will join a crew of four more astronauts in man’s first-ever “crewed mission” to Mars aboard the Daedalus.

The pilot episode offered a preview of the global excitement and enthusiasm towards the historic endeavor. It explained just how humanity has an innate desire to explore and go beyond their boundaries. However, challenges begin to plague the team even prior to landing on the planet.

The documentary portion of the series will focus on today’s real efforts to bring man to Mars with the help of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

SpaceX hit headlines when it became the first private company to launch a payload into orbit and return it to the planet intact. Only agencies like NASA or Russia’s Roscosmos have done this before.

Right now, Elon Musk wants to use SpaceX to bring people to Mars. This is a goal that is becoming very promising by the minute. The entrepreneur plans to begin colonizing Mars by 2022. This is a decade sooner than the series’ fictional timeline.

Fans and enthusiasts can also participate in a mini “boot camp” at Bonifacio Global City until November 19. Visitors can sign up for an exclusive MARS identification card. They even get to try out mental acuity, dexterity and hand-eye-coordination “tests” inside the small room. There is even a “wind tunnel” for them to enjoy.

Jude Turcuato, SVP & General Manager of Fox Networks Group Philippines, told What’s A Geek that fans should expect to see more technical details on man’s plans to colonize the Red Planet. He shared that the series makes it convincing that going to Mars will be worth it, but it will not be easy.

“It’s still about risks and rewards,” he said. “I would be very honored [if I was given the opportunity to go to Mars], but I would have to think about it. Will I be willing to leave my family, my friends, or my lifestyle?” He added viewers will get to ask themselves the same questions by the time they watch the series.

The series is the work of Academy Award and Emmy Award-nominated and winning producers Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Michael Rosenberg (Imagine Entertainment), and Justin Wilkes and Dave O’Connor (Radical Media).

The first episode of the six-part series first premiered in the Philippines on Sunday, November 13. However, fans and enthusiasts can see the rest of the episodes every Thursday at 9PM beginning November 17, 2016.