• PROGRAMME
• SYNOPSES
• JURY
• AWARDS
• CALL FOR ENTRIES

A DREAM CALLED MARS

1. Author: Giorgio Pacifici
2. Director: Giorgio Pacifici
3. Editor: Fabio Loli
4. Photography: Ofer Eshed, Massimo Baiocchini
5. Producer: Laura Boido
6. Production: RAI-International
7. Italy
8. 30 min.
9. 2009

The TV special A Dream Called Mars takes as its starting point the recent discovery of ice at the north pole of Mars, before proceeding, using previously unseen footage, to show the new missions in various countries to the Red Planet. Nagin Cox, one of those responsibles for NASA's Jet Propulsory Lab, describes the "Mars Science Laboratory", a sophisticated American laboratory that, in 2011, will search for biological traces of life on Mars. Enrico Zampolini, a planner at Thales Alenia Space, explains how the radar Marsis on the ESA probe "Mars Express" managed to locate underground reserves of ice that are kilometres long and describes "ExoMars", the European probe under Italian supervision, that, in 2017, will look for water and life under the surface, using a 200kg drill.
Roberto Vittori, an ESA astronaut, illustrates in detail the possibility of setting up "Base Mars", the future station to be inhabited by humans on the Red Planet and "Terraforming", the process that will transform Mars into a world similar to the Earth.
To conclude Jean Jacques Dordain, President of ESA and Piero Benvenuti of the Italian Space Agency who, with the scientists Enrico Flamini and Marcello Coradini, explain what point we're at in conquering the Solar System with automated probes.
Also noteworthy is the trip to Etna, in Sicily, where geologists and researchers explain how the world's space agencies tested some of their space rovers on the volcano because of the characteristics it shares with the surface of Mars.