The Mars Generation

The documentary takes place at the space camp in Alabama. The kids who come are fifteen and sixteen and every one of them wants to be an astronaut. At camp they build rockets, get into the simulator, practise landings. Cut in among this are scientists and engineers: is going to Mars technically possible, how long would it take, would a human body survive it, where does the money come from. And there is what the film is really about: how American interest in the space programme fell away after Apollo. Michael Barnett directs; ninety-seven minutes, with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Michio Kaku and Andy Weir among those speaking. The case it makes is simple: if these children are the generation that goes to Mars, the programme has to be built around them now.