Mars in fiction the past; Mars is a setting rather than a goal. Mariner 4 in July 1965 found that Mars—contrary to expectations—is heavily cratered, with a very thin atmosphere. No canals were found; while scientists did not believe that Mars was a moist planet, the lack of surface water surprised them. Science fiction had so influenced real explorations of the planet, however—Carl Sagan was among the many fans who became scientists—that after Mariner 9 in 1971-1972, craters were named after Wells, Burroughs, and other authors. The Mariner and Viking space probes confirmed that the Martian environment is extremely hostile to life. By
Hope Mars Mission the lead space center, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), of the United Arab Emirates, is named. The project manager is Omran Sharaf. The resulting mission data will be shared freely with more than 200 institutions worldwide. The Emirates Mars Mission team includes 150 Emirati engineers, with Omran Sharaf as the Project Manager; Sarah Amiri, Deputy Project Manager; Ibrahim Hamza Al Qasim, Deputy Project Manager, Strategic Planning, and Zakareyya Al Shamsi, Deputy Project Manager for the Operations. The "Hope" probe will be compact and hexagonal in shape and structure, with a mass of approximately including fuel. The probe will