Rock Hudson stars in this made-for-TV science fiction mini-series about the early colonisation of Mars by settlers from Earth, based on Ray Bradburys vision of the future in The Silver Locusts. With two previous missions having failed to successfuly colonise the red planet, Colonel John Wilder (Hudson) leads another manned attempt to Mars and soon learns that a chicken pox virus carried by the earlier expeditions has had a devastating effect on the Martian population.