James Nicoll Reviews

Robert Zubrin’s 1996 The Case for Mars is an ostensibly non-fiction book in which he makes a case that not only are (comparatively) inexpensive crewed missions to Mars possible, so are much more ambitious plans.

Not having reread this since 1996, I encountered the usual surprises. For example, I’d forgotten how utterly shameless Arthur C. Clarke was about promoting his own work in a foreword for someone else’s book.

While I could snark about the author’s consistent use of manned over crewed (save for a reference to the Franklin expedition, which was as far as I know manned and not crewed), Zubrin is aware that women exist and mentions certain issues specific to women, such as the possibility of elevated cancer rates.

Space cynics might focus on the following issues with the case for Mars.

● One is a presentation issue. As one might guess from this plea:

The image of Zubrin makes him look like a madman, or a MySpace user. Could someone please find/take a better image? 

Zubrin displays an energetic, forthright advocacy, fueled by his conviction that he is utterly correct while his opponents are nincompoops. The effect in live media is manic. In prose this impression is only somewhat muted. Spokespersons who do not give the impression they have just ingested a prodigious quantity of coffee might more effectively sway investors.

● Not having access to a time travelling telephone box, Zubrin was limited to data available in 1996. He acknowledges this. Mars is a fascinating, complex world, but very little of what we’ve learned since 1996 makes it seem more inviting.

● Zubrin almost certainly understates the inherent risks in both travel to and residence on the planet. About 60 percent of robot missions to Mars end in failure. While no doubt greater care would be taken with human cargo, space agencies don’t consider robot probes expendable; the loss rate gives an idea of how hard it is to get spacecraft from Earth to Mars in one piece. Any survivors would have to flawlessly manage such issues as regolith toxicity.

● Zubrin is extremely optimistic that sufficiently valuable materials can be located and retrieved from Mars to justify investment. In some cases, he relies on wishful handwaving: maybe Mars has rich, untapped ore beds! Given that Mars has water [long discussion goes here] it would be surprising if it did not. However, we do not know that it does. Good luck convincing investors ​“maybe there’s a potential platinum mine somewhere on a planet with the surface area of Africa”¹.

● His deuterium advocacy deserves special note. It is true water on Mars (and for that matter, Venus) is deuterium rich compared to Earth’s. It’s also true that deuterium commands a high price. However, at present we do not know if higher concentrations of deuterium will compensate for the additional costs of refining it on Mars or the costs of exporting it to Earth. What we do know is that when Canada needed deuterium for CANDU reactors, it was able to supply demand from its own indigenous sources.

● On a related note, Zubrin predicts as fact future events he cannot possibly know will play out as he needs them to. Case in point:

In the long term, Mars will enjoy a power-rich economy based upon exploitation of its large domestic resources of deuterium fuel for fusion reactors. 

Will it, now? That seems to depend on commercial fusion being possible at all , being developed, and not being out-competed by rival power sources like solar. Granted, solar is less effective on Mars due to its distance from the Sun, but it has the considerable advantage over fusion of actually existing.

● As for tying Martian development into the American frontier myth, Zubrin is pitching this to Americans. It’s no more surprising than if he tried to sell Canadian on Mars Direct by somehow referencing National Unity, or by asserting that Martian colonization is so easy, it could be achieved by the next time the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup². You market your ideas to the customers you hope to have.

To end on a high note, however unrealistic, unconvincing, and ludicrous The Case for Mars is, the text certainly makes for entertaining reading.

The Case for Mars is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books). Pretty good for a twenty-eight-year-old book.

Details follow.

Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke reminds readers of the wealth of Arthur C. Clarke books available for purchase, also finding some room to mention Zubrin’s book.

Preface

In which Zubrin asserts the case for Mars, in particular for a novel approach that will bring down costs from ha ha-no to the merely extremely expensive: the use of in situ resources, rather than hauling everything from Earth.

1. Mars Direct

An inspiring fable about an early 21^st century Mars Direct crewed mission to Mars.

Strictly speaking, ​“manned”. Crewed appears only once, in reference to the Franklin expedition.

2. From Kepler to the Space Age

A history of human exploration of Mars, from historical times to the modern era up to 1996.

3. Finding a Plan

George Bush’s extremely expensive and consequently very doomed Space Exploration Initiative was doomed because it was too expensive. Happily, for Americans and to a lesser extent Man’s destiny, a modest genius was able to offer a far more affordable alternative and as Robert Zubrin was that very modest genius, he is able to outline his approach in detail. Key idea: scavenge necessary materials from Mars itself, rather than hauling them from Earth.

George Bush’s ambitious SEI should not be confused with his son’s ambitious Vision for Space Exploration. Presidents should be judged on their own abject failures, not those of other administrations.

4. Getting There

A fairly detailed discussion of trade-offs between various routes from Earth to Mars. For example, longer duration trips offer better mass ratios but more risk of in-space mishaps.

This section has lots of crunchy tables. Mind you, so does Atomic Rockets but that wasn’t around in 1996… quite. Atomic Rocket’s roots were in 1997.

5. Killing the Dragons, Avoiding the Sirens

Zubrin assesses the dangers inherent in Mars Direct and finds them overstated or manageable.

Hands up, everyone who is astonished that a pitch for Mars Direct does not conclude it would be a death sentence.

6. Exploring Mars

Various strategies for maximizing return on effort for Martian explorers.

7. Building the Base on Mars

A discussion of the necessary architecture and other considerations inherent in building crewed habitations on Mars.

8. The Colonization of Mars

How might the US supply Mars with colonists and what would the colonists do once they were on Mars?

9. Terrraforming Mars

An eternity of life in sealed habitats on a nearly airless world may seem dreary. Happily, it turns out that Mars can be terraformed.

In Zubrin’s defense, he does not understate the time scales or difficulty of terraforming Mars anywhere near as much as Pournelle understated them with respect to terraforming Venus,

10. The View from Earth

Various strategies for securing funding: moonshot style, ISS international cooperation style, and deranged oligarch surely planning to found a dystopian hellscape on Mars style.

To be fair, the name dropped for the third isn’t Hugo Drax, as I expected, but Newt Gingerich. You may know Gingrich as the author of the record-setting alternate history novel 1945³, but he was also an active politician responsible in many ways for guiding the US onto its present course.

Epilogue: The Significance of the Martian Frontier

Frontiers are awesome and necessary for the US’s well-being.

Should I mention that most of the US’s economic development has been since the American frontier was closed? Or that it would be trivial to provide a new frontier simply by portioning the US into four or five regions and once per generation declaring one of them terra nullus, open for free development?

Special Addendum

On the exciting discovery of what some hoped were Martian fossils.

1: The lunatic optimism of some investors: people invested in both Darien and Poyais.

2: However long that takes. [Canadian joke]

3: The book co-authored by William R. Forstchen, whose Wikipedia entry is no longer carefully curated to delete any mention of 1945.