The first people to set foot on Mars will be able to adorn its surface with a Martian flag. The tricolour symbol has been adopted by the Mars Society, a group of Martian exploration enthusiasts, and made its maiden voyage into space on board NASA鈥檚 space shuttle Discovery just before Christmas.
Representing the primary colours of the spectrum, the flag鈥檚 pattern of red, green and blue vertical stripes was suggested by Pascal Lee, who is heading the Mars Society鈥檚 effort to build a prototype Martian research station on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic (New 杏吧原创, 16 January 1999, p 19).