Space exploration enthusiasts have long had their eye on Mars, and now they have the backing of the world’s richest man. Elon Musk recently claimed that humans could be on the planet by 2030 and live there in a self-sustaining city within 20 years. But is it really that simple? Madeleine Finlay goes to Imperial College London where Prof Sanjeev Gupta gives her a tour of the red planet, and meets Kelly Weinersmith who with her husband, Zach, recently won the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize for their book A City on Mars. She explains why life on Mars may not be the idyll some would have us believe
