There are some interesting stories in the news right now about some European scientists who are working on preparing for the first manned trips to Mars. One of the things they’re doing to prepare is developing a ton of robotic probes (only fair since so many Martians have done it to us, eh?) to do more extensive testing of the planet’s surface. Another cool thing is that they’re going to have six people “simulate” a trip to Mars, isolating them in the same way they’d be in the ship for 500 days! Of course there will be “situations” and scenarios that they’ll have to run through, trying to simulate what could actually happen on such a trip.

Here are some links to stories about this:

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2187362/european-scientists-plan-land
http://www.arcamax.com/technology/s-178326-631976
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/04/space_agency_wants_mars_volunteers.php

And of course you can always go to Google News and search for ESA and Mars.