With this book, distant Mars will become closer, and space will interest even those who have never looked at the stars. Who would have thought that the obsession with the Red Planet began with a translation error. When in 1877 Schiaparelli saw a network of lines on the surface of Mars, technological progress and a great desire to be not the only intelligent beings in the universe played a cruel joke on the newspapermen, and Italian natural channels turned into English man-made ones. And since then, people have been trying to find intelligent life on the distant Red Planet and make contact with it. Mark Hartzman has studied hundreds of archival materials and collected the most interesting stories from the past and present. Is there life on Mars, how Tesla was going to "get through" to the Martians, why suddenly the representatives of the Red Planet became "green men" and how toilets are designed in spacecraft that one day will fly to Mars - all this and more you will learn by reading " The Big Book of Mars. And do not forget to share new knowledge with friends and parents: they will definitely hear some facts for the first time!