National Geographic is launching a public Mars activation in NYC to celebrate its new cosmic event series.
Deep space exploration has long been a national obsession, even if an end goal like habitation on another planet feels impossibly distant.
President Obama recently penned an op-ed for CNN (God help us all that they felt the need to put an editor’s note to clarify that he is, indeed, president of the United States), in which he recalls marveling at the wonders of space travel from early test flights, to the moon landing, to rovers on Mars. Space travel is present in contemporary America’s DNA, he argues, and our goal of reaching beyond the stars pushed us to achieve heights once deemed unimaginable within our own atmosphere.
“The space race we won not only contributed immeasurably important technological and medical advances, but it also inspired a new generation of scientists and engineers with the right stuff to keep America on the cutting edge,” Obama wrote.
President Obama made a commitment to NASA at the start of his time in office, and he’s doubling down now that he’s cleared for landing, as turbulent as it has been. His goal is to send humans to Mars by 2030 and bring them safely back to earth. By then, we could be looking at space exploration in the private sector in a totally new light.
The red planet has its time in the sun right now. National Geographic Channel is set to debut its event series, MARS, on November 14th. The series will explore space travel in 2033, and how we got there, featuring present-day interviews with influential figures like Elon Musk, Stephan Petranek, Andy Weir, Ann Druyan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
For everyday citizens, our closest space encounters are playing astronauts as kids, or a family trip to Cape Canaveral, home of NASA. In advance of the MARS premiere, Nat Geo is challenging viewers to reconnect with their sense of exploration, that same feeling Obama got as a kid when space travel felt exciting and nearly untouchable.
In New York City’s Lower East Side (corner of Canal and Varick Street) from October 26-29th, an activation called “Experience Mars” is open to the public. It’s an entryway to 2033, where visitors can enter a cable robot simulator to step foot on Mars, take one giant step in a VR Martian surface walk, and help build a human outpost against “jarring” resistance.
Mars travel may not be so far fetched for this lifetime, so here’s your chance to get a head start.