Mars Mars ( also known as Sol IV ) was a planet in the solar system , inhabited by the Gandoran s , the Ice Warrior s , a viral species known as the Flood , and later , by human colonists . Mars existed in " several hypothetical realities in the same dimensional space during the very same epoch " . ( PROSE : " The Ninnies on Putney Common " ) Features . Only Mars , Peladon and Laylora contained deposits of the valuable ore , trisilicate . ( TV : " The Curse of Peladon " , PROSE : " The Price of Paradise " ) According to the Fifth Doctor , Mars had gravity which was " about a third " of the sorts of planets the human , Peri Brown , was used to . Its surface was powdery and dark red in colour . Mars had roughly a four - minute radio delay from Houston on Earth . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) According to Daniel Llewellyn , Mars was 50 million miles away from Earth in December 2006 . ( TV : " The Christmas Invasion " ) The Tenth Doctor and Yuri Kerenski described the distance from Bowie Base One on Mars to Earth as 40 million miles in November 2059 . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) As the Eighth Doctor recalled , before Mars had become " devoid of life " , Mars had snow - capped green hills . ( AUDIO : " The Creed of the Kromon " ) History . Remote past . The Fourth Doctor theorised that , around 12 million BC , the Fendahl passed from Planet 5 to Mars on its way to Earth , before the Time Lord s trapped its homeworld in a time loop . ( TV : " Image of the Fendahl " ) This phenomena became known as the Great Death in Ice Warrior history . ( PROSE : " GodEngine " ) At some point in its past , Mars was home to many civilisations , but eventually the Gandoran s were the last one left . ( AUDIO : " Lords of the Red Planet " ) The age of the Ice Warriors . The race later known as the Ice Warrior s were created by the Gandorans as a slave race . ( AUDIO : " Lords of the Red Planet " ) At the height of their civilisation , they became peaceful , honour bound beings who were artisans as well as builders . They hunted only for food and never fought one another and thus never experienced any form of war . ( AUDIO : " The Judgement of Isskar " ) Accounts differ as to the downfall of the Ice Warriors , with some mentioning being at their peak and active thousands of years BC , ( TV : " Cold War " , " Empress of Mars " ) and others claiming their atmosphere to have been destroyed " centuries " before the 21st century , ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) or even millions of years BC . ( AUDIO : " Deimos " ) Whilst favouring colder climates , they populated the equator of Mars ; their shell - shaped buildings were designed to reflect heat . In this period , their world was vibrant and alive . Water was plentiful and there were canals on the planet . The Martians lived in peace for twelve thousand years . This civilisation was shattered when a segment of the Key to Time was discovered by time travellers . Its removal led to the creation of a gravity well that devastated the planet . For the next three decades , the civilisation was devastated by climatic changes . Some among the Martians managed to get off world . Those on Mars fought among themselves for food and shelter , becoming a warrior race . After another thirty years , the energies from the stolen piece of the Key to Time were spent and the ground settled . The remaining Martians emerged onto their world to rebuild their civilisation . ( AUDIO : " The Judgement of Isskar " ) However , it was the Ice Lord Izdaal who discovered that the damaged atmosphere meant that ultraviolet radiation led to many of their children being sickly . He declared that Mars was no longer capable of supporting life but was ignored . He stood before the " Red Dawn " and was killed by the radiation . This showed that the world was dying . This led both to the salvation of the race as well as their transformation into a conqueror species . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " , " The Judgement of Isskar " ) According to the Twelfth Doctor , Mars ' atmosphere had " all but evaporated " , and the surface was " lifeless " before 1881 . He told Iraxxa that the Ice Warriors could not survive without help . Friday agreed with the Doctor . ( TV : " Empress of Mars " ) At some point prior to his travels to ancient Mars , the Fifth Doctor was surprised that there were Ice Warriors still around by the 21st century ; he assumed they " all " left Mars after its atmosphere thinned " centuries " before the 21st century , while Lord Zzaal said the Ice Warriors had discovered " primitive , early life " developing on Earth before his people went into suspended animation . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) The Eighth Doctor dated this time as " many millions of years " before the 23rd century . ( AUDIO : " Deimos " ) By human prehistory , the Ice Warriors already possessed spaceflight . With their ecosystem dying and becoming more inhospitable , the Ice Warriors , led by Varga , sent an expedition to Earth , but the ship crashed and was frozen in a glacier where it would remain for millennia . ( TV : " The Ice Warriors " ) At some point , the Ice Warrior Hives were created as a colony for the Warriors . ( TV : " Robot of Sherwood " ) The Osirans . Around the 8th millennium BC , the last flower s on Mars died out . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) Around 5000 BC , the Osiran s reached Mars and set up underground bases beneath pyramid s that they built . Sutekh was imprisoned in a tomb in Egypt and kept in a state of paralysis by an energy beam transmitted from the main pyramid on Mars itself . A warning message , " Beware Sutekh " , was broadcast continually by radio . ( TV : " Pyramids of Mars " ) Pre - colonisation period . Early 20th century . In 1903 , after receiving a wealth of information from the future , Grigori Rasputin foresaw , among other things , men on Mars . ( AUDIO : " The Wanderer " ) In 1911 , Laurence Scarman picked up this signal on his marconiscope . That same year , Sutekh escaped from his ancient bonds . ( TV : " Pyramids of Mars " ) On 30 October 1938 , many human s across the United States took Orson Welles ' radio adaptation of H . G . Wells ' " The War of the Worlds " literally , and believed that Martians had really invaded . ( AUDIO : " Invaders from Mars " ) Later 20th century . Several accounts held that humanity landed on Mars long before its colonisation in July 2058 . ( TV : " The Ambassadors of Death " , PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " , " The Dying Days " , AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) The Tenth Doctor indicated otherwise . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) Mars was a target of a series of British manned space probes overseen by the British Space Centre ( a renamed British Rocket Group ) and constructed with International Electromatics technology . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) The first Mars landing happened within a few years of the American moon landing . This was a source of pride for the British public but made the national debt worse , and future historians like Bernice Summerfield would remember this as a doomed attempt by Britain to show it could still be a great power . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) " Mars Probe 6 " and " Mars Probe 7 " made contact with a group of peaceful , radioactive humanoids . Another spacecraft , " Recovery 7 " , entered Mars orbit to determine what had happened to earlier probes . ( TV : " The Ambassadors of Death " ) According to one account , an international mission to Mars shortly after led to contact with the Zoltan s , which was made public knowledge and led to a media frenzy . ( PROSE : " Soldiers from Zolta " ) In 1977 , Britain ' s " Mars Probe 13 " astronauts accidentally wandered into the city of the Argyre Clan Ice Warriors and were slaughtered after they spied on a research facility . To appease the Ice Warriors , the British government ' s representative , Minister Edward Greyhaven , had mission commander Alexander Christian framed for the astronauts ' deaths and imprisoned . He agreed to ensure humanity would not return to Mars . For the next two decades , the British secret service spread what was , according to one account , disinformation , that Mars was uninhabitable and sabotaged NASA data in order to discourage Mars missions . This account claimed Mars ' atmosphere was breathable , ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) though other accounts showed Mars to be long - dead with an unbreathable atmosphere to humans and Time Lords by the 21st century . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " , TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) Though he was able to breathe on the surface , according to Lord Zzaal , even without the threat of the red dawn , the low temperature and loss of water following the thinning of the atmosphere would mean an Ice Warrior could only survive for a few days . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) Yet another account had the Twelfth Doctor describe Mars ' atmosphere as " all but evaporated " and unsuitable for Martians to survive in without help as early as 1881 , which Friday agreed with . ( TV : " Empress of Mars " ) As a result of Greyhaven ' s plot , Britain would have little scientific or technological achievements to show for the Mars Probe missions . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) In 1994 , Joseph Rennigan , a lone human astronaut marooned on desolate and lifeless Mars , found himself aided by unseen friends , namely the First Doctor and his companions Susan Foreman , Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright . ( PROSE : " Rennigan ' s Record " ) In 1997 , Britain returned to Mars with the Mars 97 mission — a deliberate plan by Greyhaven and Argyre Clan Lord Xznaal to give the Ice Warriors a pretence for a " retaliatory " conquest of the United Kingdom , with Greyhaven placed in power as a Prime Minister . When it turned out the Ice Warriors were using him for a pretext to wipe out and areoform Earth , Greyhaven wiped out the Argyre ' s nests on Mars with the Mars 97 Orbiter . Xznaal was defeated soon after by UNIT and the Eighth Doctor . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) At some point , a probe found Martian DNA and took it back to Earth . This helped create the hybrid , Tanya Webster . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) 21st century . Circa the dawn of the 21st century , a space expedition funded by Leo Webster arrived on Mars in the " Argosy " to find an Ice Warrior and use it to create a clone army augmented by Ice Warrior biology and technology . The " Argosy " crew arrived in the tomb of Izdaal , whose guards were awoken from suspended animation . Paul Webster tried kidnapping Sub Commander Sstast , but the " Argosy " was shot down by the Ice Warriors . He tried escaping in the Ice Warriors ' rocket with the Fifth Doctor and seventeen - year - old Tanya Webster as hostages . Lord Zzaal allowed the Doctor and Tanya to escape Paul while Zzaal sacrificed himself to the ultraviolet rays of the sun . With Zzaal no longer in mortal danger , Sstast fired a sonic charge at Paul , killing him . Tanya stayed behind on Mars to became an ambassador for Earth . ( AUDIO : " Red Dawn " ) On 31 October 2006 , the " Guinevere One " was launched from Britain for an intended landing on Christmas Day , but was intercepted by the Sycorax . ( TV : " The Christmas Invasion " ) On 31 July 2008 , the NASA probe " Phoenix " confirmed the existence of liquid water on the planet . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) In 2010 , a NASA probe landed on Mars . Sarah Jane used Mr Smith to shut it down before it got too close to an Osiran pyramid . ( TV : " The Vault of Secrets " ) On 31 December 2020 , a Mars Rover from the European Space Agency , manned by John Wilcox , uncovered a copy of David Bowie ' s " Life on Mars " on the surface of Mars . Wilcox believed it was a prank by his colleagues . ( PROSE : " Life on Mars on Mars " ) On 24 May 2027 , it was reported that the British government was conducting further Mars research . ( AUDIO : " A Death in the Family " ) While the Tenth Doctor identified the Bowie Base One colony in 2058 as the " very first humans on Mars " , an obituary of Adelaide Brooke mentioned that a three - person team including Brooke landed on Mars in 2041 , when Adelaide was 42 . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) In July 2058 , Bowie Base One , the first human colony on Mars , was established , staffed by an international crew under Adelaide Brooke . Contradicting earlier accounts , the Tenth Doctor claimed that this colony was made up of the " very first humans on Mars " . On 21 November 2059 , the base was overrun by a sentient , water - based lifeform and the base was destroyed to prevent it reaching Earth . Originally , nobody survived ; the Tenth Doctor altered time , saving Brooke and two other crew members ( though Brooke would kill herself soon after ) . ( TV : " The Waters of Mars " ) The Ice Warriors had not given up their ambitions to colonise Earth . A strike team was sent to take control of T - Mat , and use it to transport seed pods to Earth that were designed to terraform its environment to an environment more suited to them . The fleet was destroyed thanks to the Second Doctor . ( TV : " The Seeds of Death " ) According to Harold , who had watched a documentary about the Ice Warriors on the History Channel , the Ice Warriors were " supposed to have been wiped out " following the T - Mat incident . In the 23rd century , the Ice Warrior expert , Professor Schooner , declared the Ice Warriors " extinct " for " centuries " , while Gregson Grenville had learnt in school that " [ t ] hey were all melted when the invasion fleet spiralled into the Sun " . According to Grenville , nobody knew of any Ice Warriors existing after this period until the attack on Deimos Moonbase in the 23rd century . Human tourist s to the catacombs of Deimos in the 23rd century , such as Margaret , considered the moon the " final resting place " of the Ice Warriors and she and Harold expressed shock that " real " Ice Warriors could ever exist . One of the Ice Warriors that awoke from the tombs on Deimos considered him and eight others the last of their race . The Eighth Doctor corrected him , mentioning the tombs in the Sol system ' s asteroid belt containing Ice Warriors yet to have been awakened . ( AUDIO : " Deimos " ) However , according to another account , in the 2080s , the Ice Warriors fought and lost the Thousand Day War with Earth , opening up the planet for human colonisation and exploitation . ( PROSE : " Transit " ) The human colonisation of Mars commenced in 2095 . ( PROSE : " Beige Planet Mars " ) Colonisation period . Early Mars colonists discovered the body of Bernice Summerfield , frozen in stasis following her encounter with the Epoch on Zordin . A small cult was formed which worshiped Benny as a goddess . ( AUDIO : " Brand Management " ) By the early 22nd century , Mars had been partially terraformed into a tourist resort for the wealthy . As the seas and canals were not red enough for the tourists , cranberry juice was poured into them . This human activity led to a malevolent , formless entity escaping from the sea ' s reflective surface . The Ninth Doctor and Rose defeated it ; the Doctor believing the threat of it returning would force humanity to treat Mars with respect . ( COMIC : " The Cruel Sea " ) Later in the 22nd century , Mars had ceased being a pure resort and had residential settlements . The Seventh Doctor and his companions visited Mars during the period of the Dalek occupation of Earth . ( PROSE : " GodEngine " ) Shortly after the Dalek defeat , Anji Kapoor was stranded on Mars for four years . According to one account , at this time , Ice Warriors would sometimes stage attacks on human workplaces in an attempt to gain independence from humanity ; these attacks largely failed . ( PROSE : " Fear Itself " ) However , the Eighth Doctor mentioned that colonies of humans existed on Mars , numbering 300 , 000 in the 23rd century according to Temperance Finch , although according to this account , no Ice Warriors were known to live there , and were widely considered to have become extinct until a tomb containing live Ice Warriors was found on Deimos . ( AUDIO : " Deimos " ) According to one account , the Eighth Doctor altered the beam of the atmospheric re - ioniser on Deimos Moonbase to make Mars more Earth - like for its inhabitants , saving them from being killed by the beam . The feedback the Doctor caused from the ionisation beam set the atmosphere of the moonbase alight , setting the entire moon on fire , making it an artificial sun to heat the human colonists . ( AUDIO : " The Resurrection of Mars " ) Around 2400 , Mars had only a single , small colony and was the birthplace of Space Army Commander Vel Karneen . The Dalek s invaded the solar system and Mars was their third target . Everyone in the colony was killed in three hours . Karneen had been offworld and led the Space Army against the Daleks . ( COMIC : " Invasion of the Daleks " , PROSE : " The Secret of the Mountain " , PROSE : " Break - through ! " ) Later , the Daleks used " Humanoids " for an ambush on Mars . ( COMIC : " The Humanoids " ) Darzil Carlisle was born on Mars just outside Olympus Mons in 2414 . ( AUDIO : " The Game " ) By the 26th century , the time of Bernice Summerfield , scholars like Benny herself devoted themselves to the study of Ice Warrior culture . ( PROSE : " Transit " ) In 2545 , during the Dalek War , the Daleks were able to seize control of Mars due to a failure to deploy Mars ' nuclear deterrent . They would be eventually driven off - world by Earth and its allies . By 2595 , humans celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the start of human colonisation . ( PROSE : " Beige Planet Mars " ) In the 27th century , Mars ' President Lithops commissioned the development of a time machine . Time assassin s attempted to use it to erase his timeline ; the Tenth Doctor stopped them and destroyed the unsafe machine . ( COMIC : " Bus Stop ! " ) It was around this time Bernice Summerfield came to Mars to discover a Pyramid that contain the essence of Sutekh and a possessed Seventh Doctor . She arrived during a war between the Martian colonial government and the free Mars Party . ( AUDIO : " The Pyramid of Sutekh " ) 40th century . Circa the 39th or 40th century , Mars and the Ice Warriors were part of a Galactic Federation that included Earth , Alpha Centauri and Arcturus . The presence of trisilicate made the planet politically important . ( TV : " The Curse of Peladon " ) By the 40th century , the most common form of residential home on Mars was a prefabricated model known as M9 . ( AUDIO : " The Anachronauts " ) In the late 40th century , Mars was among the " Big Four " powers in an alliance against the Dalek invasions . It was led by Bakabi when the Big Four decided to found the Space Security Service . ( PROSE : " The Outlaw Planet " ) Space Security agent Bret Vyon was born in Colony 16 . ( TV : " The Daleks ' Master Plan " ) In the year 4000 Mars was one of the key targets for the Dalek takeover of the solar system . ( TV : " Mission to the Unknown " ) Further on . In the 82nd century , Mars was privately owned by Josiah W . Dogbolter . ( COMIC : " The Moderator " ) By the year 200 , 000 , Mars was home to a university of questionable reputation . ( TV : " The Long Game " ) In 200 , 100 , the planet was the subject of a question on the Game Station : it was determined , however , that the dish Gaffabeque originated on Lucifer , and not Mars . ( TV : " Bad Wolf " ) Uncertain dates . Under the influence and control of the Usurian s , a colony of humans temporarily moved to Mars , then on to Pluto after overpopulation had made Earth uninhabitable . ( TV : " The Sun Makers " ) The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith visited a colonised Mars . ( PROSE : " Scarab of Death " ) The Fourth Doctor again travelled to the planet with Leela and visited a terraformed , commercialised Mars abundant with commercialised imagery derived from human science fiction . ( PROSE : " Crimson Dawn " ) The Seventh Doctor stated that Mars had been terraformed on four different occasions by four different races in a million year time frame . ( PROSE : " GodEngine " ) The Seventh Doctor and Ace once visited Mars . ( AUDIO : " Gods and Monsters " ) The Seventh Doctor and Sally Morgan visited Mars , where they checked hieroglyphs on the tomb of an ancient star god . ( AUDIO : " Gods and Monsters " ) Erimem , Andy Hansen , and Helena donned spacesuits and visited Mars where they left a copy of David Bowie ' s " Life on Mars " for future scientists to discover . ( PROSE : " Life on Mars on Mars " ) Andy Hansen and Erimem visited Mars again by themselves . A weather control station announced a blizzard by 9 : 00 local time . ( PROSE : " Auld Acquaintance " ) Alternative timelines . In an alternative timeline , the Galactic Dutch Company had created domed colonies on Mars by 1983 . ( AUDIO : " The Waters of Amsterdam " ) In an alternate timeline , Andy and Helena returned to Mars after Erimem went missing on 31 December 2017 to see if Erimem had somehow been stranded there . ( PROSE : " Auld Acquaintance " ) Other references . The Museum of the Last Ones had specimens of extinct species from Mars . ( PROSE : " The Last Dodo " ) Ben Jackson asked the Second Doctor to visit the planet , in vain , since the TARDIS would have landed on the Moon eventually . ( TV : " The Moonbase " ) The Fourth Doctor claimed to have a pilot ' s licence for a Mars - Venus rocket run . ( TV : " Robot " )