A project in three parts, this book begins by presenting the uncanny suburban town of Mars in Pennsylvania. Steeped in midnight tones, Monica Alcazar-Duarte's quotidian records of gas stations, football fields and fast food joints transport viewers to a time, place and feeling of all American life, but more importantly of human life. The work is imbued with a sense of western normality while hinting at an otherworldly undertone.

Interrupting that quietness are five additional sequences inserted into the suburban narrative, chronicling the research and the individual scientists who are attempting to make colonising the red planet a reality. Placed at key intersections, these contrasting documentary pictures capture everything from the top space travel technology of the European Space Agency to the terrestrial yards where robotic rovers are put through their paces in artificial landscapes of rock and sand. Meanwhile would-be astronauts are tested against the rigours of a future mission, confined for months at a time to enclosed habitats in inhospitable places such as polar deserts, Hawaiian lava fields, or an industrial estate outside Moscow.

The third component is an augmented reality portal. Using an app, readers are invited to search for and discover embedded footage and sound within the pages: three-dimensional animations of spy satellites and space colonies, and narration from a professor of planetary science and astrobiology presenting his ideas on colonisation and on the notions of space law and space ethics.

The book celebrates the zeal, creativity and resilience of the people behind the initial efforts our society is making towards this next phase, and encourages us to look to the far future with eyes wide open.