so, i've arrived on mars and visited the casino, the alley, the temple, the brother and the aerobics studio as well as the instructor's house but i can't travel to the power plant; the option simply does not appear in my list of places to travel. is this a glitch? is there something i've missed? thanks in advance.

Hard to say if you missed something, but you can look in this walkthrough - http://www.gameboomers.com/wtcheats/pcMm/MartianMem.htm

thanks for the reply. i read several walkthroughs before posting and none of them mention needing to talk with anyone or finding items before being able to travel to the power plant. they all just say to get the the flashlight from the alley and the card from the casino lobby and then travel to the power plant. i've done those things but the power plant still doesn't appear as a travel option. thanks again.

anyone else?

Really late reply, but I ran into the same problem and found out I had to restore a saved game and visit Terraform to obtain info on the power plant. Once you make it to Mars apparently there is no way to get the info and you get stuck.