What’s the big rush? Frequent flyer miles aren’t expiring and airfares haven’t been cut. Rather, the Red Planet has swung so near to Earth, the normal two-year flight time has been slashed to 6 months-and-change.

The last time Mars was this close, Neanderthals looked up in wonder and made cave paintings of it, somewhere around the year 60,000 BCE.

But this time around, Homo Sapiens from the U.S., the European Union and Japan have drawn up plans for a much closer look. In fact, both the Americans and the Europeans have an exciting and historic mission: Robot landers will parachute down and search for signs of extra-terrestrial Life.

The EU spacecraft, Mars Express, was launched by a Russian rocket and carries a British-designed lander named The Beagle II after Darwin’s fabled ship The Beagle. (Sorry, Snoopy.) On track to arrive first, the Brits’ tiny lander will land and start sending home pictures of Mars on Christmas Day 2003.
The Beagle II will then begin running a battery of tests on the Martian soil, hoping to make the first official discovery of microbial Life on another world.

Racing in right behind the Beagle II, with an ETA of early January, are two larger NASA landers that comprise the Mars Rover Mission. Named by school children in a national competition, Spirit and Opportunity are both set to rove the Red Planet, searching for water -- the most likely medium in which to find Life, and a necessity for any future manned Mars expedition.

Lastly, the Japanese satellite, Nozomi, which means “Hope”, should go into Mars orbit sometime in December-January. Damaged by solar flares on its journey, Nozomi will require emergency re-programming to repair itself before it can begin its mainly photographic mission.

The eyes of the world, however, will be focused on the Beagle II and NASA’s two Mars Rovers. Many scientists believe it’s not a question of whether Life will be found, but “Who will find it first?”

Our Race To Mars section will contain regular updates about this friendly Euro-American competition. NASA may have two Rovers in the race, but there’s a lot of smart money on the pint-sized Beagle.

We’ll keep you posted.