What happens when you take “Big Thinkers” like Andy Weir (bestselling author of “The Martian”), Susan Wise Bauer (historian, colonization expert and author of the History of the World series) and astronaut Leland Melvin, and add them to an impressive group of creatives and actors to make a science-based television series?  You get the thought-provoking NatGeo series MARS.  Ready to launch into it’s second season on Nov 12, we met with these visionaries and specialists to talk about how the series incorporates science fact and hypothesis with fictional dramatization, how each of them adds their perspectives and the possibilities of human kind’s actual colonization of the red planet.

As we look to the planets for our future existence, it’s sobering to keep in mind the comment from Melvin, “Earth is not fragile, we are fragile”.

Astronaut Leland Melvin

Historian/author Susan Wise Bauer and David Weir, author or “The Martian”

Actors JiHae “Hana/Joon” and Jeff Hephner “Kurt”

Showrunner Dee Johnson and author Dr. Stephen Petranek