Two robotic missions, Pathfinder and Global Surveyor , are at Mars now. Half a dozen other orbiters and landers are scheduled for launch to Mars in the next eight years. That fleet is the most ambitious human space project since the Apollo flights to the Moon in the 1960s. For instance, a spacecraft will leave Earth about 2005 for Mars to return three years later with a pound of Martian rock and soil. We may learn from that whether Mars has mysteries which require humans to go there to solve.
Men are from Mars . . .
The biggest Mars mystery is whether life ever did, or still does, exist on the Red Planet. The discovery on Earth of meteorites from Mars which seem to contain evidence of primitive life out there has raised many new questions about the origin of life in the Solar System. That's a far-out suggestion, but, if true, we would be the result three or four billion years later. Some scientists find it a fascinating speculation that perhaps the home planet of the human race might actually be Mars. Answering such questions and unraveling mysteries would lead to an age of enlightenment on Earth.