The space race is heating up once again, and governments have issued their challenge: Develop a viable Mars program in four years. The catch? Your government will supply only a fixed amount of funding per year. The rest of your budget and the success of your mission depend on the success of the projects you fund...but you're not the only one in this race!

4 Years to Mars is card-based, with individual player boards to track mission objective progress. The game can be played solo, co-operatively or competitively.

In the first of four program years in the competitive game, players spend their "space bucks" (Spucks) on funding research in their four space station experiment bays. In the following years, players fund projects to further their mission objectives and provide additional funding for the next program year. Research topics reduce the cost of corresponding projects. In the base game, action cards can be played to help your program as well. After four years, government funding ceases, then the player with the most points wins, with points being awarded for progress in each of the eight mission objectives. A bonus is given to the first and second players to complete the entire objective.

In the co-operative game, all players work together to complete the eight mission objectives before the end of the four program years. In order to advance a mission objective, players must work together to fund projects that create sets of mission objective icons. For example, to advance your rover mission objective once in a five-player game, you must have a set of five cards with mission objective icons. Unlike sets for the competitive game, cards can be used for multiple icon sets.

In the single player game, the goal is also to complete the eight mission objectives before the end of the four program years, but some cards are removed from the market after every round, so you must plan for the next year.

All of the projects in the game are based on real NASA projects and products.

-description from designer