Cultured Travel Guide Books - The Case for Mars |
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List Price: $25.00
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 919.92304
EAN: 9780684827575
ISBN: 0684827573
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 328
Publication Date: 1996-10-16
Publisher: Free Press
Studio: Free Press |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good technical sections, lame politics
Comment: The Case for Mars describes a way to send explorers and settlers to mars, an explanation of how colonization would work and an argument for why we should do both.
Robert Zubrin is an Aeronautical engineer who has worked on space projects. The Case for Mars has sufficient technical detail to make his arguments persuasive. The technical topics are well explained with out being overwhelming or tedious for a non-technical audience, like myself. There are notes at the end of some chapters that go into greater detail.
In the Case for Mars Zubrin explains his "Mars Direct" plan for piloted flights to Mars. Mars Direct was created in response to NASA's "90 day plan" for going to Mars. NASA's plan required building space stations and lots of research on novel engineering solutions. It would have been extremely expensive. The 90 day plan was the product of a bureaucracy that was trying to fund as many of its' existing projects as possible. Zubrin and his colleagues created the Mars Direct plan to use current technology to get astronauts to Mars safely, quickly and cheaply.
The first part of The Case for Mars explains how the Mars Direct plan would work, and why it is feasible. This is the best part of the book. It is interesting and detailed, but readable and persuasive.
Zubrin then goes on to explain how Mars would be colonized. The technical aspects of the explanation seem plausible to me. When he starts to describe how Mars colonies would be financially viable and independent he went off the tracks. The arguments involved a lot of hand waving and were no longer persuasive.
The end of the book is a polemic about the importance of having a frontier to the health of society. The reader gets a capsule history that seeks to demonstrate that all societies rot if they do not have a frontier.
I wish the space cadets would leave the business plans, sociology and political polemics to others. They should concentrate on topics they actually know something about.
The Case for Mars offers a clear convincing argument in favor of the Mars Direct plan for exploring mars. The rest of the book is annoying.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good ideas on how to go to Mars, but the more important question is: Why would you want to?
Comment: Zubrin has a very interesting plan, which appears to be sound both technically and philosophically. While he certainly presents a compelling case for *how* we should go to Mars, he fails to actually present a case for *why* we should want to go to Mars in the first place.
Of all the places to go in the solar system, why Mars? What does Mars have to offer other than dust? What is on Mars that is not more easily accessible elsewhere in the solar system? These are important question to consider if one is going to invest resources and human lives in the conquest of space.
To build a successful colony, one needs raw materials as well as abundant energy. Mars is lacking on both counts. Water? How much is really available in the ice caps and subsurface? Energy? The amount of geothermal energy is questionable, as Mars is mostly dead from a geological standpoint. Solar energy is less than 1/3 of that found on Earth, requiring large arrays that must support themselves against gravity as well as be protected from dust storms. What raw minerals are available other than iron oxide (rust)?
No, all the necessary resources, and more, are available in the Asteroid Belt and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Any additional energy expended in reaching them is far more than compensated for the fact that their wealth is not bound deep in a gravity well such as that of Mars. The reduced solar energy is not a limiting factor either, as collector arrays can be built as large as necessary when there are not constraints of gravity.
Finally, the space radiation issue is better addressed, as the Belt colony can dig itself in to an asteroid as deeply as necessary to provide adequate shielding.
Forget Mars, the Belt is where we need to go.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Attack anything you disagree with
Comment: I was disappointed in the book. Dr. Zubrin spends far too much time faulting NASA and trying to say why we should not do anything but go to Mars. He does make good points with his theme of "living off the land". I don't believe this book will convince anyone outside those who already want to go to Mars that we need to go. I think it will give ammunition to those who dislike NASA and the space program in general.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Most Important Book
Comment: The vision that Robert Zubrin lays out in this book makes it the most important for anyone to read. Not only is it well written, Zubrin's ideas are outstanding and critical for our society to learn and embrace as we move quickly into the 21st century.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Case for Mars
Comment: If ever I read a book on what visionaries with a practical side have to say, this is it.
The book was written in the early 1990's looking out 10 years to what would be possible. It was well researched and based on technical expertise.If asked, they could make this happen.
Well worth reading for anyone interested in space exploration.
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| Editorial Reviews: |
A leading theorist on Mars exploration discusses the Mars Direct Plan, which he developed for NASA, explaining the possibilities of Martian travel and the cultural and physical rationale for colonizing and terraforming the planet. 25,000 first printing.
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