There will be a person on Mars within the next 30 years, according to the science minister, who has outlined an ambitious plan to put Britain at the heart of a Sino-American programme to go where no man has gone before.

Speaking on his return from last week’s UK trade trip to China, David Willetts predicted that Britain would be able to broker an international effort to get humans to another planet.

Mr Willetts said: “If you wanted to bring the great powers together, probably looking a decade or two ahead, trying to get a man on Mars as a shared project between the Chinese, the Europeans and the Americans – it would be very exciting. Our hunger for discovery isn’t over. And one of the big advantages of the challenge of getting a manned mission to Mars is that it is such a big project that it probably requires global cooperation.”