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To hear the people behind the new miniseries "MARS" talk, they're not just making a TV show — they're doing something Really Important.

OK, it's about the first manned mission to Mars in 2033. It's mixed with a documentary about how all this is going to happen. (See accompanying story on Page D10.)

But how important is going to Mars?

It's about nothing less than the preservation of the human race, apparently.

According to Andy Weir — one of the experts interviewed in "MARS" (Monday, 7 pm., National Geographic Channel) — the "main reason" for the voyage "is to learn how to send humans to Mars."

He ought to know. He wrote the book "The Martian." And his book was turned into the 2015 Matt Damon movie … which was really good.

Anyway, Weir said that we need to learn how to send humans to the Red Planet because "if there is a catastrophe" on Earth, "our species could literally be wiped out."

He pointed to a meteor "that killed everything that didn't burrow" 65 million years ago. And a supervolcano "that killed all but 10,000 humans" 70,000 years ago.

"And we could just nuke ourselves right out of existence. But if mankind has two planets … then our odds of extinction drop to nearly zero," Weir said.

Unless something really bad happened to both planets at once, I suppose. So … no Earth vs. Mars wars.

Steven Petranek, the author of "How We'll Live on Mars" who's also seen in "MARS," agreed — to a point. But he argued that "Mars is just a stepping stone" because one day the sun will go supernova and consume Earth and Mars.

"Human beings will go extinct if we do not become a multiplanet and spacefaring society," he said. "We have to learn how to actually get out of this solar system and find another Earthlike planet."

Scientists believe that won't happen for billions of years, so it's not an immediate problem. But still — point taken.

Weir said Mars could be terraformed "given enough time or given less time and a whole bunch of money." He said humans could "deliberately provoke" the "runaway greenhouse effect that we're desperately trying to avoid" on Earth, which would melt Mars' polar caps, "which are made of carbon dioxide." And that "would create a thicker and thicker atmosphere" that would retain more heat, melt the water and make Mars "much more Earthlike."

"That could be done in as few as several decades."

Cool. Sounds a little like the end of the 1990 "Total Recall" movie — the Arnold Schwarzenegger version — only slower. And with fewer eyeballs popping out of heads.

Petranek also argues it's not simply a fantasy that humans could live on Mars.

"I don't think we're actually imagining anything in this series that we couldn't have done 30 years ago," he said. "All the technology that existed 30 years ago is enough to actually get humans to Mars.

"But we have to learn how to actually go much further than Mars. And we really need to get busy at this, because the concept of being able to travel light years beyond Mars to get to another habitable planet is a very awesome piece of imagination and technology that we don't possess now. And the only way we're going to get there is to begin the process."

So "MARS" isn't just about informing and entertaining, it's about saving the human race from destruction.

Cool.

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.