This book, which has the subtitle, “The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must” by Robert Zurbin with Richard Wager was recommended by a friend, and I was glad to have been told about it.  The book provides important examples of the power of imaginative and innovative thinking. It gives examples of explorations that failed because they relied on transporting everything needed into inhospitable territory. That is contrasted by expeditions such as the one by Lewis and Clark that succeeded because they used available resources accumulated during their travels. The book presents a case for exploring Mars while the team uses the resources available on the Red Planet to, as examples, build a shelter, grow food, and manufacturing the fuel that will be needed on the return trip to Earth. 

The proposed method of exploration beginning with a description of the booster rocket taking the team of explorers to Mars is presented in believable detail. It is proposed that the exploration team will arrive on Mars after a three year trip and spend 500 days on the planet while mining and accumulating materials needed for a return trip.

One reason given for the need to visit Mars is to research the possibility that life existed or exists on the planet.  There is evidence indicates liquid water once flowed on the surface, and there are the chemicals necessary to create living organisms.  Discovery of past or present life would “…virtually prove that life abounds in the universe…” “On the other hand, if we find that Mars never produced any life, despite its once clement climate, it means that the evolution of life is a process dependent upon freak chance.  We could be virtually alone in the universe.”

There is a warning about risks to the crew.  Effects of lengthy exposure to 38% of Earth’s gravity are not known.  It is estimated that radiation exposure will create a small but measurable increase in the probability of cancer.  Pending survival from possible mechanical failures or other accidents, illnesses or other problems, the crew will blast off in the ERV at the end of a year and a half after gathering massive amounts of information.

The first part of the book was intriguing, but I began to lose interest until Chapter 6, which begins to fill in details of the mechanics of how Mars could be explored while the crew would “live off the land.” There are descriptions of the kinds of surface exploration equipment that would be needed. There are interesting discussions of how fuel could be manufactured from chemicals extracted from the atmosphere.

Another chapter discusses how the Mars base will be built and how the structures could be made habitable for both humans and the plants grown for food.  The chemicals needed to make plastics will be extracted from the atmosphere. Food production would involve growing plants in greenhouses. It is interesting that tilapia fish and mushrooms are both suggested as items the team should be prepared to grow.

There are chapters on the colonization of Mars and what might happen next that I found less interesting because I felt it was more important to consider the immediate problem of how to explore the planet with at least some chance for the explorers to survive. The final chapters of the book summarize the arguments for how Mars can be explored and settled, and why there is a need for man to accomplish those objectives.

I’ll close this review with reference to a wonderful fiction book titled “Glitch” by Kate Rauner that I reviewed on Amazon.  One of the interesting side stories in the book is about the mysterious death of the first four explorers to Mars, plans to investigate the cause of the deaths, and the placement of a memorial on the Red Planet.