Summary Mars is planet like no other in our solar system. It is a real place, where we could stand upon its surface and look at the majestic landscape all around, with only simple life support.

We have been drawn towards Mars for eternity. And we will continue to be. Going to the red planet is our destiny.

This electrifying film takes us back to our first encounters with Mars, when our very great expectations would be challenged by reality.

Would the surface of the red planet bear witness to Martian industry and domination? Or would it be a lonely, desiccated wilderness? Had our Earthly imaginations misled us and seduced us into projecting all our wild ambition for alien life onto our little neighbour?

The amazing array of contributors in this film reveal with wit and charm the extreme pressures placed upon them and the extraordinary challenges those involved faced, when charged with revealing Mars to mankind.

You will be given intense first-hand testimony of the fear and elation felt by the women and men who delivered our first robotic explorers to the surface of Mars. The shock, the awe, the incredible relief of their staggering achievement, comparable to landing men on the Moon. But also the conflict and frustration, bitterness and regret.

Did we we discover evidence for life on Mars? And if we did, why would we not admit it?

No other story of our conquest of the solar system is so full of human drama. This film contains a comprehensive cast of central players from a variety of Martian missions. A collection of protagonists that have never been assembled in a film before, and are most unlikely to be again. With sublime insight and eloquence they take us on a winding, rollercoaster journey. From 1960s Earth, across the gulf of space to Mars. Down through the swirling dust storms of the thin atmosphere, and with the aid of all manner of parachutes, retrorockets and airbags, to place ourselves, confidently on the red Martian soil in the present day.

Nobody will want to miss this story.

• Documentary