By Greg David

TV Guide
Published: Friday, September 21, 2007

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Mars is the new moon in space expert’s minds, and we’re going to get there – if these same experts are right – in the next 30 years.

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How will we do it? Discovery explores that question, and dozens more, in a pile of special programming devoted to the red planet.

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First up is the wonderful Race to Mars, a four-part miniseries which stars Michael Riley (This is Wonderland) as astronaut Rick Erwin, who heads an international crew in a race to reach Mars before a team from China beats them. I don’t want to give too much away story-wise, but let’s just say that the “race” has consequences. 

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Race also features stunning special effects – space rockets, the Mars landscape, the cramped crew quarters – which all lend unprecedented realism to the mini. Indeed, it looks and feels like a feature film.

At the heart of the film is Mars, but also Riley, who as Captain Erwin must be father, commander, boss, scientist and psychiatrist to his crew. We spoke to Riley on the phone from his home in the 905.

 

TV Guide: Race to Mars is a sweeping TV-movie with a lot in it, including some amazing special effects.

Michael Riley: I’ve never been in something so layered and laden with technology. I’ve only seen clips of it, so I’m very interested to see how it all looks. I just liked the idea that there were no drooling aliens running around, and no monolith on the planet when we landed. There was just something nice about having a straight-ahead, authentic look – and everyone was very adamant about making it authentic – at what it’s going to be like to sit in front of our plasma TVs and see [humans on Mars] in about 23 years.

 

TVG: What do you think the message behind Race to Mars is?

MR: Within in the title is the irony that it can’t be a race. Part 1 of that answer is that it can’t be like the Apollo days. Given the fiscal and technological scope of the thing, it has to be a global effort. The second part is, given that it has to be such a global effort, we’re really doing this on behalf of mankind and therein lies the debate or why we should go to Mars. I think this is something hardwired inside of humans – we’re preprogrammed to boldly go – and there’s something galvanizing about that. If we took all the money out of Iraq, and missile defense systems and that type of thing, we’d have the money to feed everyone, keep the environment intact and do this thing that symbolizes something larger than all of us.

 

TVG: What drew you to Race to Mars? Was it a childhood fascination with space?

MR: I was seven in 1969 and I vividly remember being glued to my grandmother’s television set, watching Neil Armstrong step down, so I’ve always had an interest in that. I’ve seen two total solar eclipses, I’ve always been a fan of Carl Sagan and all that stuff, but over and above that, the character itself attracted me. After doing This is Wonderland for three years, I think I needed something still and stoic… and the job description of astronaut and mission commander certainly fit that bill. And I like the fact that it’s about the humans, and that we know that if we get the wiring right, we can get there technologically. What we don’t know is what happens when you put six people in a space the size of two schoolbuses strapped together and you close the door for three years – what is going to happen? That’s part of what attracted me to it.

 

TVG: Can you imagine being in that situation? I’d snap and kill everybody.

MR: Oh absolutely. I remember reading somewhere that one of the things that will be required is a lock on everyone’s cabin door. I thought, ‘Really? These are professional astronauts.’ I can’t picture them banging on the door yelling, ‘Let me in!’ But I think it is that psychological factor… that cabin fever… I don’t know if I could do it. I had trouble with the space suits.

 

TVG: Really?

MR: Without the effect of zero G’s, those things were 65 lb. snowsuits. You’d put them on, and it would take four people 45 minutes to get you in or out of. When they put those last few bolts on, and put that helmet on, and you knew that you were going to be under the lights, and working in that thing for 15 hours, you did have to find a Zen place inside to get through that. It was strange thing, never mind being hauled around on wires to do the space walks 30 feet above the floor.

 

TVG: Did you do the zero gravity stuff with wires then?

MR: Yeah, we did our little Cirque du Soleil thing, and then they go in and erase all the wires [in post-production], but even that was tough. The first thing that they teach you on the wires is that the fulcrum of your body is your hips. So they have a harness that is so tight that it basically cuts off the circulation between your upper and lower body. And that’s just the first layer past your underwear before you put on your spacesuit. And then you have to act, breathe, emote and move around on top of all that. 

 

TVG: Is there anything that jumped out at you when you were going through the research materials?

MR: Oh, there was so much. Speaking with some of the astronauts, such as Marc Garneau, you realize just how much of ‘the right stuff’ is going to be required to go on this mission, and then how much more ‘right stuff’ the guy commanding the whole thing… that challenge appealed to me.

 

TVG: So, if the technology was all there, would you go to Mars?

MR: I’ll pretend to go to Mars with this, but I don’t think it’s in my make-up to go. If I had a trillion dollars, I would give some of it to see earth from orbit just once, and maybe a three-day moon thing, a short jaunt. If I can sit in front of my plasma TV with my daughter in 23 years, and say, ‘See that? I made a TV show about that. I played Rick Erwin…’ that’s good enough for me.