Robert Zubrin – författare

—Carl Sagan, The Denver Post 

If you ever daydream about space travel and human space flight—or hope to one day rove the Red Planet alongside Curiosity—then MARS DIRECT will teach you how we can get there

The human race is at a crossroads. In the coming decades, we will make decisions regarding our human spaceflight program that will lead to one of two familiar futures: the open universe of Star Trek, where we allow ourselves the opportunity to spread our wings and attempt to flourish as an interplanetary species—or the closed, dystopian, and ultimately self-destructive world of Soylent Green, constantly at war with one another over humanity’s “limited” resources. If we plan to survive ourselves and one day travel to the stars, the human race’s next stepping-stone must be a manned mission to and the eventual colonization of Mars.

In this four-part e-special, Mars Society founder Dr. Robert Zubrin details the challenges of a manned Earth-to-Mars mission. Challenges which, according to Zubrin, we are technologically more prepared to overcome than the obstacles of the missions to the moon of the sixties and seventies. Dr. Zubrin’s relatively simple plan, called Mars Direct, could feasibly have humans on the surface of Mars within a decade. Zubrin also discusses the current predicament of NASA, the promise of privatized space flight from companies like SpaceX, and the larger implication behind the absolute necessity to open the final frontier and transform from a planetary society into an interplanetary society. Our future as a species requires us to take baby steps away from the cradle that is planet Earth or, ultimately, perish here.

“Zubrin''s vibrant, colorful, and stimulating narrative of how to get to, modify, settle, and prosper on Mars makes me a believer.” —Homer Hickam, #1 New York Times–bestselling author 

When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more. Zubrin’s Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales—homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government—of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights—that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent. 

With all of this in place, Zubrin’s Red Planet will become a pressure cooker for invention in bioengineering, synthetic biology, robotics, medicine, nuclear energy, and more, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. We can create this magnificent future, making life better, less fatalistic. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces and limited resources when, together, we can create planets.

The Case for Nukes is a unique book. In it, world-renowned nuclear and aerospace engineer

Dr. Robert Zubrin explains how nuclear power works and how much it has to offer humanity. He

debunks the toxic falsehoods that have been spread to dissuade us from using it by variously the

ignorant, the fearful, the fanatical, and by cynical political operatives bought and paid for by

competing interests. He tells about revolutionary developments in the field, including new

reactor types that can be cheaply mass produced, that cannot be made to melt down no matter

how hard their operators try, that use a new fuel called thorium far more plentiful than uranium,

and still more advanced systems, employing thermonuclear fusion - the power that lights the sun

- to extract more energy from a gallon of water than can be obtained from 300 gallons of

gasoline. He tells about the bold entrepreneurs - a totally different breed from the government

officials who created the existing types of nuclear reactors - who are leading this revolution in

power technology.

But there are broader issues involved in the nuclear debate than technology alone, and Zubrin

is not shy about addressing them. He makes clear the critical difference between practical

environmentalism, which seeks to improve the environment for the benefit of humanity, and

ideological environmentalism, which seeks to use instances of human insult to natural

environment as evidence for a prosecutorial case against human liberty. He shows how the latter

school of thought is wrong, not only with respect to the catastrophic harm it would do to

humanity, but to nature as well. He also exposes the masters of mercenary environmentalism,

who deploy troops of dupes to shut down companies or whole industries in order to eliminate

competition in return for being suitably rewarded by the beneficiaries of such efforts. He shows

that when it comes to environmental improvement, freedom is not the problem; freedom is the

solution. He makes clear both the possibility and necessity of a nuclear-power-enabled

revolution in the human condition by putting it in a broader historical context of the overall

process of development of civilization, whereby new technologies create new resources and new

knowledge, which in turn make possible still more technological advance.

Finally, Zubrin brings all this to bear to address the greatest threat facing humanity today

- which is the possibility that we will turn on each other, as we did in the 20 th century, under the

spell of the false idea that resources are finite.

Only in a world of unlimited resources can all men and women be brothers and sisters.

Only in a world of freedom can resources be unlimited.

That is the world we can, and must, create. In The Case for Nukes, Zubrin shows us how.

Brought to you by Penguin. Within a few years, humans will be able to voyage to Mars. SpaceX is at the forefront of companies already building fleets of spaceships to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America – to the then New World. We will settle the red planet, transforming its raw materials into resources and tackling the challenges that await us, creating a new frontier for humankind.Dr Robert Zubrin explains how populous Martian city-states will emerge, producing their own air, water, food, power and more. How they must be beautiful to attract settlers, and what that might look like. How the primary exports are unlikely to be material goods but intellectual products, created by a technically adept population in a frontier environment where people will be forced to innovate – including GMOs, robotics, AI and power production. Zubrin even predicts the red planet’s customs, social relations and government – of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights – that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw talented Earth immigrants.In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again’. Zubrin inspires us to embrace another magnificent future today. With the right pieces in place, his red planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars and beyond. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces on Earth when, together, we can create planets.© Robert Zubrin 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024