Former German astronaut Thomas Reiter holds the record for the longest serving non-American or non-Russian person to live on the International Space Station, so he knows what he's talking about when it comes to outer space.

Reiter is now responsible for all manned and unmanned mission operations to space in his role as head of the European Space Agency's Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration division.

Thomas Reiter sat down with DW's Jessie Wingard at the ESA to talk about life in space.

The ESA, in conjunction with the Russian Space Agency, RosCosmos, launched their first ever unmanned spacecraft on Monday to test Mars' atmosphere both for evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet, and whether Martian life still exists there.

DW was at the ESA for the launch of the mission to our planetary neighbor, Mars - take a listen to our broadcast below.