''The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must'' is a nonfiction science book by

Robert Zubrin Robert Zubrin (; born April 9, 1952) is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He is also an advocate for U.S. space superiority, writing that "in the 21st century, victory on land, sea or in the air ...

, first published in 1996, and revised and updated in 2011. The book details Zubrin's

Mars Direct Mars Direct is a proposal for a human mission to Mars which purports to be both cost-effective and possible with current technology. It was originally detailed in a research paper by Martin Marietta engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker in 19 ...

plan to make the first human landing on Mars. The plan focuses on keeping costs down by making use of automated systems and available materials on Mars to manufacture the return journey's fuel ''

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

''. The book also reveals possible Mars colony designs and weighs the prospects for a colony's material self-sufficiency and for the

terraforming of Mars The terraforming of Mars or the terraformation of Mars is a hypothetical procedure that would consist of a planetary engineering project or concurrent projects aspiring to transform Mars from a planet hostile to life to one that could sustai ...

Mars Direct

The Mars Direct plan was originally detailed by Zubrin and David Baker in 1990. ''The Case for Mars'' is, according to Zubrin, a comprehensive condensation for laymen of many years' work and research. Chapters 1 and 4 deal primarily with Mars Direct.

Colonization

For

, the attractiveness of Mars Direct does not rest on a single cost-effective mission. He envisions a series of regular Martian missions with the ultimate goal of colonization, which he details in the seventh through ninth chapters. As initial explorers leave hab-structures on the planet, subsequent missions become easier to undertake. Large mall like structures buried in regolith, pressurized habitats would be the first step toward human settlement; the book suggests they can be built as

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

-style atria on the surface and then be buried with regolith, with easily produced Martian brick. During and after this initial phase of habitat construction, hard-plastic

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

- and abrasion-resistant

geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the locally shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a conn ...

domes could be deployed on the surface for eventual habitation and crop growth. Nascent industry would begin using indigenous resources: the manufacture of

plastics Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic materials composed primarily of polymers. Their defining characteristic, plasticity, allows them to be molded, extruded, or pressed into a diverse range of solid forms. This adaptab ...

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

s and

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

. The larger work of

terraforming Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to mak ...

requires an initial phase of

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

to release atmosphere from the

regolith Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...

and to create a

water cycle The water cycle (or hydrologic cycle or hydrological cycle) is a biogeochemical cycle that involves the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth across different reservoirs. The mass of water on Earth remains fai ...

. Three methods of global warming are described in the work and, Zubrin suggests, are probably best deployed in tandem: orbital mirrors to heat the surface; factories on the surface to pump halocarbons such as perfluromethane into the atmosphere; and the seeding of bacteria which can metabolize water,

nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...

and

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

to produce

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...

and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

(these would aid in global warming). While the work of warming Mars is on-going, true colonization can begin. ''The Case for Mars'' acknowledges that any Martian colony will be partially Earth-dependent for centuries. However, it suggests that Mars may be a profitable place for two reasons. First, it may contain concentrated supplies of

metals A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. These properties are all associated with having electrons available at the Fermi level, as against no ...

of equal or greater value to

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

which have not been subjected to millennia of human scavenging and may be sold on Earth for profit. Secondly, the concentration of

deuterium Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more c ...

– a possible fuel for commercial

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutrons, neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the rele ...

– is five times greater on Mars. Humans emigrating to Mars thus have an assured industry and the planet will be a magnet for settlers as wage costs will be high. The book asserts that “the labor shortage that will prevail on Mars will drive Martian civilization toward both technological and social advances.”

Wider considerations

While detailing the exploration and colonization, ''The Case for Mars'' also addresses a number of attendant scientific and political factors.

Risks confronted

The fifth chapter analyzes various risks that putatively rule out a long-term human presence on Mars. Zubrin dismisses the idea that radiation and zero-gravity are unduly hazardous. He claims that

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

rates ''do'' increase for astronauts who have spent extensive time in space, but only marginally. Similarly, while zero-gravity presents challenges, “near total recovery of musculature and immune system occurs after reentry and reconditioning to a one-gravity environment.” Furthermore, since his plan has the spacecraft spinning at the end of a long tether to create artificial gravity, worries about zero gravity do not apply to this mission in any case. Back-contamination – humans acquiring and spreading Martian

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almo ...

– is described as "just plain nuts", because there are no host organisms on Mars for disease organisms to have evolved. In the same chapter, Zubrin decisively denounces and rejects suggestions that the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

should be used as waypoint to Mars or as a training area. It is ultimately much easier to journey to Mars from low Earth orbit than from the Moon and using the latter as a staging point is a pointless diversion of resources. While the Moon may superficially appear a good place to perfect Mars exploration and habitation techniques, the two bodies are radically different. The Moon has no atmosphere, no analogous

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

and a much greater temperature range and rotational period.

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

or desert areas of Earth provide much better training grounds at lesser cost.

Viability

In the third and tenth chapters, ''The Case for Mars'' addresses the politics and costs of the ideas described. The authors argue that the colonization of Mars is a logical extension of the settlement of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. They envision a frontier society, providing opportunities for innovation and social experimentation. Zubrin suggests three models to provide the will and capital to drive Mars exploration forward: the J.F.K. model, in which a far-sighted U.S. leader provides the funding and mobilizes national public opinion around the idea; the Sagan model, in which international co-operation is the driving force; and the Gingrich approach, which emphasizes incentives and even prizes for private sector actors who take on research and development tasks. In keeping with the third idea, Zubrin describes twelve challenges that address various aspects of the exploration program. A monetary prize – from five hundred million to twenty billion dollars – is offered to companies who successfully complete the challenges. The prize-based approach to hardware development has emerged within the private aeronautics community, though not yet on the scale envisioned by Zubrin. Ventures such as the Ansari X-Prize and Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize seek low-cost spaceflight development through private enterprise, and crucially, for the attainment of very specific predetermined goals in order to win the prizes. The underlying political and economic problems of raising sufficient capital for terraforming using halocarbon emissions has been critiqued by John Hickman.The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects
John Hickman, JOURNAL OF EVOLUTION AND TECHNOLOGY, Volume 4, November 1999

Translations

In 1997, a Polish translation of the book was published under the title ''Czas Marsa: dlaczego i w jaki sposób musimy skolonizować Czerwoną Planetę'' (''The age of Mars: why and how must we colonize the Red Planet'') (). In 2017, a Russian translation of the book was published under the title of ''Курс на Марс'' (''On Course for Mars'') ().

References

External links

Mars Direct

* For a critical review see

Issue Forty-Six, November 2001 * For a view which concentrates on the financing of such a venture, see

Mars Society web site

Italian Mars Society web site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Case For Mars 1996 non-fiction books Astronomy books Missions to Mars Space colonization literature Human missions to Mars Books by Robert Zubrin Colonization of Mars Works about Mars