The Case for Mars

Robert Zubrin is the foremost authority on how to get to Mars, and in addition to his engineering expertise, he is one of the most prominent advocates of colonizing it. This classic book, now in its updated 25th Anniversary edition, should be read by everyone interested in the future of humankind. It contains more technical detail about space travel than some people will care to learn, but that can be skimmed; the section about colonization, and the concluding chapter explaining why going to Mars is important, are what I chose it for. In Zubrin's opinion and my own, Mars is… show more.

If there's a roadmap to Mars, it is Robert Zubrin's classic The Case for Mars. An aerospace engineer by training, Zubrin describes with exceeding clarity every detail needed to set up a rudimentary camp on Mars with the long-term goal of human migration and Martian terraforming. Zubrin's plans include a novel rocket launch approach called Mars Direct, which sends cargo in advance before the crew and establishes a cycle of launches every two years. Unlike most advocates for Mars settlements, Zubrin doesn't pretend the journey is simple. As with settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth, most migrants will die en… show more.

This is the one non-fiction book on my list. Zubrin wrote The Case for Mars in the mid-1990s with a plan to get to the Red Planet, utilize its natural resources, terraform the planet, and build a society. That idea may sound like science fiction, but Zubrin lays out specific scientific details on how it could all be possible. 

This one is for all those nerds, like me, who grew up reading science fiction and dreaming of someday living in a lunar or Martian colony. Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer who, with his colleague David Baker, formulated a proposal in 1990 for building a human settlement on the Red Planet that, by bypassing low-Earth-orbit construction platforms and a lunar waystation, would be both cost-effective and entirely based on current technology. In his 1996 book, The Case for Mars (updated in 2011), he lays out the logistics of this plan, which he calls Mars Direct. Like Kasting’s book, Zubrin… show more.