The New World on Mars - by Robert Zubrin (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Robert Zubrin, world-renowned space authority and founding president of the Mars Society, taps today's newest science and most dogged research to foretell in astounding detail the brave, new Martian civilization we will achieve when (not if!) humankind colonizes Mars

When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today's space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more. Zubrin's Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales--homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government--of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights--that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent.

With all of this in place, Zubrin's Red Planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. We can create this magnificent future, making life better, less fatalistic. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces and limited resources when, together, we can create planets.

Review Quotes

Praise for The New World On Mars by Robert Zubrin

Dr. Zubrin has written a magnificent book which will set the Gold Standard for all future books about Mars. He is a pioneer and a visionary, but his conjectures are always based on solid science. His book takes us one step closer to the day when we can live and thrive on another planet.
--Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and New York Times bestselling author of The God Equation and Quantum Supremacy

Zubrin's vibrant, colorful, and stimulating narrative of how to get to, modify, settle, and prosper on Mars makes me a believer. For the sake of our civilization and our place in the cosmos as important beings, we can (and should and must) do this!

--Homer Hickam, New York Times bestselling author of Rocket Boys, adapted into the film October Sky

Making humanity multiplanetary is one of the grandest adventures of all time. The Red Planet is the key. If you want to understand why, start by reading The New World On Mars.

--Lori Garver, former NASA Deputy Administrator and author of Escaping Gravity

Robert Zubrin's The New World On Mars confirms the author's stature as one of the high priests of American techno-optimism...The book should be read by all those who reject the discredited ideas of Malthus and his degrowth disciples and embrace Zubrin's vision of a superabundant, pro-human future.

--Marian Tupy, Founder and editor of HumanProgress.org and author of Superabundance

This book is Robert Zubrin's magnum opus not only on creating a new world on Mars, and what life and society might be like for future Martians, but for what it means for us Earthlings...Zubrin shows us the way.

--Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine and New York Times bestselling author of The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, and Conspiracy

Bob Zubrin's mixture of imagination, technical expertise, zeal and civilizational commitment is unmatched. Nothing brings it out better than his first and best subject matter, the planet Mars.

--Oliver Morton, writer for the Economist and author of Mapping Mars and The Moon: A History for the Future

Robert Zubrin has thought long and hard about traveling to Mars, so we should welcome his latest thoughts. In this highly readable book, he notes how technical advances, especially reduced launch costs, render such projects more feasible. He offers a fascinating and enticing vision of the utopian New World that he believes could and should be created on the Red Planet.
--Martin Rees, the UK Astronomer Royal, co-author with Don Goldsmith of The End of Astronauts, and author of On the Future,

In one volume, Zubrin--the founding president of the International Mars Society and author of The Case For Mars, has achieved what few other books on Mars have been able. He offers an astoundingly comprehensive road map for how to make dreams about colonizing Mars become reality.
--Forbes.com

Praise for More Work by Robert Zubrin

The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

One of the most provocative and hopeful documents I have read about the space program in 20 years.

--Dennis Overbye, New York Times Book Review

Bob Zubrin really, nearly alone, changed our thinking on this issue.

--Carl Sagan, Denver Post

In this thoughtful, thorough and inspiring book . . . [Zubrin] systematically and convincingly destroys the conventional wisdom about Mars travel.

--Michael D. Lemonick, Newsday
The book shows how a flight to Mars has progressed from fantasy to ... a reality that can be achieved by us. Zubrin is showing us the way.

--Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11

Worth reading.
--Elon Musk

Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization

His elegant problem-solving and skillful promotion have put Mars exploration back on the map.

--Mark Bowden, Playboy

An exhilarating and informative ride.

--San Diego Union-Tribune

Robert Zubrin is a true engineering genius like the heroic engineers of the past.

--Frederick Turner, The American Enterprise

A great visionary work. Many of its ideas and analyses are the starting points for years of discussion. It is refreshing to see someone present a practical, step-by-step guide to seizing the stars.

--James Cameron, filmmaker

Mars on Earth: The Adventures of Space Pioneers in the High Arctic

Reading Mars on Earth is like standing next to a battering ram in action: You're half thrilled, half terrified as you watch the barriers come down. . . . I'm convinced we will go to Mars, and I hope Robert Zubrin is on the first boat. He deserves the honor.

--Anthony Brandt, National Geographic Adventure

Could not be more timely. . . . Those interested in the vision and reality of manned Mars exploration, both now and in the future, will not be disappointed.

--Steven Ruskin, Rocky Mountain News

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility

At last, here is the vision we were aiming for when we landed on the Moon. The Case for Space is the case for the future!

--Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11

The tools needed to move into space have radically changed in the last decade. Robert Zubrin has put together an excellent guide on how we got these amazing new machines and how we can now use them to break out into the solar system for the benefit of everyone.

--Homer Hickam, author of the #1 New York Times best-selling Rocket Boys

Zubrin lays out a vision for our space program whose boldness and clarity of thought we have not seen since we took on the challenge of reaching for the Moon. This is the kind of thinking we need.
--James R. Hansen, New York Times best-selling author of First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

One thousand years from now . . . we will look back and see the next few decades as the moment in time that the human race irreversibly moved off the Earth and to the stars. Why should we do that? It is our moral obligation, and in The Case for Space, Zubrin creates one of the most powerful and coherent arguments to date. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about the survival of our species.

--Peter Diamandis, New York Times best-selling author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World

Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil

Robert Zubrin pulls no punches. . . . Don't miss this one.

--James Woolsey, former Director, CIA

Zubrin describes how a simple congressional directive requiring that every car sold in America be a 'Flexible Fuel Vehicle' could rapidly transform our current, intolerable dependence on oil from unreliable sources.
--Frank Gaffney, Washington Times

Robert Zubrin has never disappointed. . . . Amid the avalanche of new books on energy, Zubrin's also goes its own way. . . . He has one goal, and one goal only: breaking the stranglehold that despots from the Middle East to South America to Africa have on the world's oil supply.

--Sharon Begley, Newsweek

How to Live on Mars

Impacts the reader somewhere near Bradbury's intersection of fiction and science. . . . This is priceless stuff. . . . The science behind the fictional backstory is rock-solid, as one would expect from the author of The Case For Mars and Entering Space. Humorous prose delights the reader. . . . But don't be fooled by the rolling-on-the-floor-laughing parts . . . this book contains nearly as much useful technical detail as The Case for Mars.

--Brian Enke, National Space Society

With How to Live on MarsRobert Zubrin has produced a new entry in the genre--a guidebook for settlers to a place that hasn't been settled yet, written in the present tense of a future that won't happen for a hundred years. It makes for amusing and interesting reading and in some ways may capture the feel of a colonization-in-progress Mars better than more sober works about the challenges of planetary habitation. >

--Glenn Reynolds, Wall Street Journal
In his new book, How to Live on Mars, Dr. Robert Zubrin moves beyond the idea of humans taking a brief exploratory mission to Mars, and considers what it would take to actually live there.

--Laurie Schmidt, Popular Science

About the Author

Robert Zubrin is president of the aerospace R&D company Pioneer Astronautics, which performs advanced space research for NASA, the US Air Force, the US Department of Energy, and private companies. He is the founder and president of the Mars Society, an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars, leading the Society's successful effort to build the first simulated human Mars exploration base in the Canadian Arctic and growing the organization to include 7,000 members in 40 countries. A nuclear and astronautical engineer, Zubrin began his career with Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin) as a Senior Engineer involved in the design of advanced interplanetary missions. His Mars Direct plan for near-term human exploration of Mars was commended by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and covered in The Economist, Fortune, Air and Space Smithsonian, Newsweek (cover story), Time, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, as well as on BBC, PBS TV, CNN, the Discovery Channel, and National Public Radio. In 1996, Zubrin was one of eight people nationwide named by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as an Advanced Concept Research Program Fellow.
Zubrin is also the author of twelve books, includingThe Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, with more than 100,000 copies in print in America alone and now in its 25th Anniversary Edition. He lives with his wife, Hope, a science teacher, in Golden, Colorado.