title: Martian Legacy: The First Manned Space Flight to Mars, Their Discoveries, and the Danger They Brought Home
author: Fred Lane
description: Fred Lane has been a science fiction fan and reader for many years. He is a semi-retired physician and an amateur astronomer. He is happy to return to his first loves which are writing and storytelling. He lives in New York City and has three daughters and a son, and three grandchildren.
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  The Galaxy Rocket was just one week away from launching.  
   It would be the first human mission to Mars. Even though  
   Mars was Earth’s neighbor, the astronauts would need to  
   travel more than 35 million miles to get there.
        And Meteor the Mousetronaut couldn’t wait to go!
  
  The astronauts had been training for two years for this 
  trip.
  Meteor watched everything they did. Each day he 
  looked over the astronauts’ shoulders as they studied, sat 
  under the table and listened while they ate, and kept a 
  notebook of the flight plan and procedures.
  
  Meteor was certain that he’d be going to Mars too. 
  He might not be the biggest astronaut, but he had the 
  power of small.
  He worked hard to stay in shape.
  He ran with Claudia.
  He did chin-ups with Claire.
  He lifted weights with Charlotte.
  The Mousetronaut was ready!
  But when the names of the crew were called out, Meteor’s name wasn’t one of them. 
  The Mousetronaut was not on the list. 
  NASA must have forgotten about their  
  