Pick of the day

Early next year, six Russian cosmonauts will enter a spacecraft in Moscow and embark upon a 500-day mission to Mars. OK, they won't. But they will spend more than a year in a mocked-up rocket, cut off from the world and forced to solve any problems themselves. If they need to speak to "ground control", communication will be delayed by 20 minutes each way, because that's how long it takes for messages to travel from here to Mars.

The Mars-500 spaceship is still being built, but Richard Hollingham gets a tour of the living quarters in Frontiers (9pm, Radio 4). He also meets Sergey Ryazinskiy, who hopes to be on the first real manned mission to Mars.

Meanwhile, back on boring old earth, digital station 1Xtra has declared today Diva Day, and is paying homage to Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys and Mary J Blige, forerunners like Aretha Franklin, and up-and-comers such as Rihanna and Leona Lewis. It all kicked off at 6am, but this being a bank holiday you probably won't catch anything before Max (2pm, 1Xtra) and her tribute to Beyonce.

Phil Daoust

Guardian, 05.05.2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,333926744-103689,00.html