How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet |  | Author: Robert Zubrin
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Seller: jmpurselbooks
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 155591
Media: Paperback
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0307407187
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.54
EAN: 9780307407184
ASIN: 0307407187
Publication Date: December 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Thinking about moving to mars?
Well, why not? Mars, after all, is the planet that holds the greatest promise for human colonization. But why speculate about the possibilities when you can get the real scientific scoop from someone who’s been happily living and working there for years? Straight from the not-so-distant future, this intrepid pioneer’s tips for physical, financial, and social survival on the Red Planet cover:
• How to get to Mars (Cycling spacecraft offer cheap rides, but the smell is not for everyone.)
• Choosing a spacesuit (The old-fashioned but reliable pneumatic Neil Armstrong style versus the sleek new—but anatomically unforgiving—elastic “skinsuit.”)
• Selecting a habitat (Just like on Earth: location, location, location.)
• Finding a job that pays well and doesn’t kill you (This is not a metaphor on Mars.)
• How to meet the opposite sex (Master more than forty Mars-centric pickup lines.)
With more than twenty original illustrations by Michael Carroll, Robert Murray, and other renowned space artists, How to Live on Mars seamlessly blends humor and real science, and is a practical and exhilarating guide to life on our first extraterrestrial home.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
 Pure platinum-group metals - Classic Zubrin, only more so. December 4, 2008
Eli J. Harman (Raleigh, NC United States)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
Once again, Zubrin delights and informs like no other. This concise, easy-reading, laugh-out-loud, little volume is packed with more solid scientific and engineering information about Mars, Mars exploration and settlement than even "The Case for Mars." Whereas the latter was informative and interesting, but fairly straight-laced, Zubrin here takes a decidedly more lighthearted approach, creating a fictional, early 22nd century guide to surviving and thriving on the new frontier.
As usual, Zubrin's strongest suit is his ability to turn his caustic wit against the foolish, timid, bureaucratic, cowardly, thoughtless paralysis which presently cripples the aerospace establishment, and indeed, Zubrin suggests, the entirety of terrestrial "civilization" (if what we have down here still merits the term.) Perhaps my favorite example is the following passage detailing water reclamation from the exhaust of a space suit's methanol/oxygen fuel-cell (used to provide electric power) in order to extend the endurance of Martians on EVA.
"The water you obtain will include a significant quantity of carbon dioxide in solution, which is why NASA has banned systems that plumb fuel-cell wastewater directly back to the suit canteen. However, despite the claimed medical problem, it is a fact that in the twentieth century, many people chose to drink carbonated water as a matter of preference."
I do not hold with those who regard Zubrin's political asides as an interruption of an otherwise interesting presentation of scientific or engineering information. Zubrin's ability to decisively skewer folly of all sorts, technical, medical, political, social, is the primary reason that he has always impressed me, and in my opinion, constitutes the single best feature of this particular book.
Zubrin's brutal and sustained critique of bureaucracy toward the end of "How to Live on Mars" is positively brilliant. If it doesn't make you yearn to give up the soul-destroying stagnation and conformity of Earth to live on a planet full of misfits, outcasts and rugged individualists, then there's just simply no trace of idealism, romance, nobility or heroism left in your black, flabby, little heart.
I'm pleased to see Zubrin take such a radical turn, or maybe simply to more openly embrace the radicalism which he has never been able to entirely prevent from seeping into his work. This one is not going to win Zubrin any friends in high places, but I suspect it will contribute to the immortality he achieves when the Martians (descended from pioneers who will make the first crossings in Mars-Direct inspired spacecraft) finally throw off their tyrannical Earthling overlords and establish a truly civilized branch of humanity for the first time in far too long.
Science meets humor, a must read for future Martian emigrants! December 5, 2008
Heather (Lakewood, CO USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book was a delightfully enjoyable read. Written with clever mix of humor, anecdotes, ridiculing stagnant status quo, and science in a wonderful blend.
Written from the point of view of a hypothetical early 22nd century Martian as a guide to getting to, living on, and living a happy and successful life on Mars for those brave and adventurous Earthlings wishing to make the trip to Mars.
While having the humor and straight talk that make this book such an easy and enjoyable read it still has the science and engineering data that a new Martian (or anyone interested in Mars) should know. The technical sections are clearly labeled for those wishing to simply skim those sections, which also increases it's readability as you decide how much of the technical sections you wish to read with each siting.
Scientifically interesting AND a laugh riot January 27, 2009
W. Ragsdill (Texas)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a riot. Dr. Zubrin knows his Mars, and it clearly comes through with the scientific details. The suggestions outlined for living and becoming prosperous on Mars are pure comical gold. The chapter on How to Be a Social Success on Mars, particularly the pick-up lines one would use to obtain a potential spouse, had me in stitches. "I think your oxygen line is loose, let me tighten it for you..."
I love his slandering of the proposed Moon Lunar Colony (the capitol is George W Bush City, aka Loonipolis). I agree that the Moon is a waste of time and we should proceed with much haste directly to Mars!
A must read for anyone who pines for the New Frontier life... On Mars!
PLANETARY PAMPHLETEER February 9, 2009
Orrin C. Judd (Hanover, NH USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Not to say you oughtn't...but before you decide to retire to Mars you really ought to read Dr. Robert Zubrin's informative and very funny new book, How to Live on Mars. Written from the perspective of a Robert Zubrin who was born on Mars in 2071, it's a chatty, snarky sort of pamphlet, that's equal parts encouragement for new settlers, score-settling with various technologies and strategies that Mr. Zubrin disfavors, space science made comprehensible for laymen, and patriotic boosterism for the socio-econo-political system that the author envisions arising on Mars--nakedly capitalistic and generally libertarian.
Had I realized just how scatalogical the humor is I might not have let him, but our 11-year old grabbed the book as soon as it came into the house and read it cover to cover. He's now eager to move to the Red Planet, if for no other reason than, "to get as far away from you as possible." At any rate, it'll encourage many to want to make the move, but ensure that they're making an informed decision. That it amuses in the meantime makes it worth anyone's time and attention.
Mr. Zubrin's Middle East satire, Holy Land is also, unfortunately, timely at the moment.
Mars is a Harsh Mistress January 21, 2009
James F. Mcenanly
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is half way to being a pretty good novel. In this book, Dr Zubrin provides a very well thought milieu, including a convincingly rendered Martian planetary environment , a group of settlements, based loosely on a cross between the old West and the Original colonies, and a repressive, Nanny-state regime on Earth, extrapolated from the present in the best Heinlein `If this goes on `tradition.
The book can be divided into two parts, basic survival , and thriving. Under `basic survival `
How to get to Mars
How to choose a spacesuit
How to choose your first ground rover
How to choose your homestead.
Choosing the right technologies for your hab.
How to save money on radiation protection.
How to survive in the desert
How to make anything.
How to grow food that is actually edible.
This is basic Robinson Crusoe stuff.
Further up the Maslow Pyramid we have how to Thrive on Mars. This includes
How to get a Job that pays well doesn't kill you.
How to fly on Mars.
How to invest your savings.
How to make discoveries that will make you famous.
How to be a social success on Mars
How to avoid bureaucratic prosecution.
All of these involve avoiding the well worn paths set out by the Terrestrial Nanny state, the sisterhood or the two working in tandem.
Zubrin sets these out in entertaining fashion,.
Other than the Martian Authority, which is a branch of the terrestrial Nanny state, and the Sisterhoods, which seems to be an interplanetary teamsters union, there are no characters. Without characters, there is no plot, but this book would be a good start for a budding Heinlein, or a aspiring Martian settler.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
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