National Geographic Channel is in the middle of a "global event series," Mars. It combines interviews with space experts, from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Elon Musk, with a sci-fi movie about the first explorers on Mars in the 2033. The series clearly and plausibly shows just how difficult a crewed Mars mission will be. At the midway mark of the series, here's what we've learned so far...

There's little room for error

As with many real-life plans for settling Mars, the agency behind the mission has already sent habitats, tools, and fuel generators ahead of the fictional spacecraft Daedalus. Thus, when the crew arrives, they'll land near the existing structures, adding their descent vehicle to the camp.

But the plan goes awry right away. One of the descent craft's landing thrusters doesn't fire, sending the lander hurtling to the Martian surface. The mission commander, Ben Sawyer, manually rewires the system to bring the back-up thruster online—and he injures himself in the process. His efforts are successful and the craft lands safely on Mars... but its trajectory changed due to the thruster activating late. Instead of settling into a fully powered base camp that's been waiting for them, the crew is 75 kilometers away.

The astronauts have to leave the lander—which was supposed to form the bulk of their settlement—and take a rover as close to base camp as possible. Worse, Sawyer seems to have broken a rib and punctured a lung, and can only be treated at base camp. The crew takes the rover part of the way; when its battery dies, they have to continue on foot. First they help Sawyer walk, then they drag him on a hand cart. When they finally get to the "workshop" module of the camp, the mission's doctor operates on Sawyer. He doesn't survive.

So on its first day on Mars, the crew has abandoned its primary home and lost its leader—all because a single thruster wouldn't fire on time. Of course, without Sawyer's quick thinking, the entire crew would have perished without ever setting foot on the planet. As with the Columbia, the Challenger, Apollo 1, and Apollo 13, tiny problems in space exploration can have enormous consequences.

Mission Control can't always help

The success of Apollo 13 is mostly due to the flight controllers in Houston, who worked out ingenious solutions for every problem encountered during the mission. For all the moon landings, communication was almost instantaneous. For a Mars mission, the delay will be around 13 minutes. That means having a conversation with Houston—or in this series, London—is prohibitively difficult. Mission Control can send advice and plans, but it's more like transmitting emails and videos than having a normal back-and-forth.

For example, during landing, Mission Control couldn't suggest solutions to the thruster problem because, by the time the crew received them, it would be too late. The greatest surgeons on Earth couldn't help the ship's doctor operate on Sawyer, since it would take far too long to get receive her data and then send advice. Thus, the first Martian settlers will have to be far more self-sufficient than their Apollo counterparts, even though they're facing struggles just as difficult, if not more so.

Stress is a factor

The plan was to live in the Daedalus, with the expansion of the "workshop," for up to two years, while looking for an underground haven to set up the permanent colony (see below). With the ship 75 miles away, the remaining crew of five must live entirely in the workshop, which was meant for two people. Instead of two years, they have about 150 hours of air. And, of course, they now have one less person to rely on.

As the astronauts try to rig or reconfigure every system in the workshop—and find an underground habitat quickly—the strain starts to affect them. Two astronauts get into an argument over whose system should get what limited wiring and hardware remains. Finally, the ship's doctor steps in and does an impromptu, one-on-one meditation session with one of her crewmates to calm him down.

These struggle comes after eight months of living together on the ship during the flight to Mars. Any future explorers—or colonists—will have to be in excellent psychological health to handle the stress and anxiety of a place where death lurks around every corner.

Radiation can kill

The magnetic field on Mars is too weak to offer protection from the radiation that comes from the sun. That puts anyone on the surface at risk of cancer. The solution is to build habitats with radiation shielding. But that kind of metal is heavy and expensive, so why not use the Martian soil instead? Enough layers of "earth" (maybe not the right term) provide adequate shielding, and you don't have to bring any of it with you. Mars has plenty of lava tubes, giant caverns created by ancient volcanoes. Walk in, set up your structures, and you're fine.





But only a fraction of Mars has been mapped, and finding those lava tubes can be difficult. The fictional crew of the Daedalus though they had two years to find one; without their ship for protection, they have a matter of days. They only have one habitation dome, and once it's deployed, it can't go "back in the box." If they're forced to open it on the surface, they're giving themselves a death sentence, and the next Mars mission becomes a rescue instead of a settlement.

Luckily, our crew finds a cavern they can easily access, with a level surface for building, and water ice nearby, just before the air runs out in the workshop. Future colonists will have to be as lucky, or better prepared.

Mars is a fascinating look at our current efforts to explore Mars, and what could happen when we finally get there. It's recommended viewing for fans of both science and science-fiction. Learn more at the show's official site.