Ok; it's basically a southern thing; look souheast before nidnite, south around the midnite hours, then towards southwest towards dawn.
Mars is basically acting like a full moon, in that it rises around sunset, stays up all nights, and then is setting as the daylight arrives.
Bad Science Alert: The Media makes this sound amazing. It's not. To say Mars is the closest its ever been is true, but were talking a few hundred miles difference. On the scale of things there's no difference between this approach and others in the past and future, just the computers says this pass is closest for some time.
The bad science is expecting. They show you great hubble shots of mars, or shots of mars taken from martian orbit, and we expect that.
What you Will see, is a very bright, very reddish star, that's not a star. Planets tend not to twinkle as much either. It will be unmistakable, and it will be quite red, which may seem weird to those who havent really looked at stars, becuase if ya do, you'll see white, blue, red, etc if you know where to look.
The red is more pronounced when you use 'averted vision' meaning if you look away, and see it not directly in the center of your vision but off a bit; color receptors are more plentiful on the periphery of the retina. So look for a real bright star that looks red, especially when you're not looking at it!
Binoculars? Get them steady enough and you may see mars, the disc. The other stars will be points of light, but with enough power in binoculars or a small scope, you will see a disc, not a point. You're looking at Mars.
You wont see Any surface details, unless you have a good, professional telescope, with a steady mount. If you're lucky and can get a real steady high power binocs, and so steady i mean on a tripod, you may see brightish areas; these are the martian polar caps.
That's about it; and 95% wont get past the 'bright red non-star' part; but hey, you know it's really Mars, and that light from Mars, is going into your eye, not just light from a picture.
Life? Maybe
Now? If so at the very small microbe level
Past? Looks like Mars had a lot more water in the past; good chance life evolved, then pfffft.
What have we done there?
No humans yet, but we've sent a bunch of orbiters and landers; which sent back fantstic shots of the planet. the Viking Landers in 1976 did some simple experiments looking for life, the results were inconclusive. We sent a rover, Sojourner, a few years back, zoomed around a bit, poked, prodded, took some photos.
What next? Beats me, but let's cut the crap; either a Human Mission to Mars, or at Least, a robotic craft that lands, gets a shitload of Martian rocks and samples, and then returns to earth.
let's back off on the shuttle. The shuttle going around the earth isn't space exploration. space exploration is going to other worlds.
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