Chris Branning
02/06/08
PHY 311
Review of A Case for Mars
The plan is simple, send an Earth return vehicle to Mars and deploy a small nuclear reactor with a chemical processing unit. Remotely activate the reactor to make methane rocket fuel and water by collecting carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Twenty months later a spaceship named the “Beagle” will take-off towards the red Martian planet with four humans. A successful launch will take them on a 180 day trip towards Mars and ignite the beginning of a colonized planet.
This idea presented by Robert Zubrin in The Case for Mars is not far fetched. Throughout the first twenty pages lies a detailed outline of why we can journey to the planet, and how we can do it now. Zubrin stresses that with the technology we have, we should have started the “Mars Direct” program he partially designed in the late 1990’s. As the book continues, Zubrin expresses a unique bias for his project and continues on in a somewhat repetitive nature.
After a brief history ranging from Galileo and Kepler, to the Viking and Apollo missions deployed by NASA, he begins a detailed description of how Mars Direct came to be. Zubrin explained that NASA performed a 90-day study on traveling to the moon and Mars and developed a plan to land on the red planet which totaled $450 billion dollars. A memo written by Zubrin after a personal investigation of the 90-Day Report “summarizes much of the logic that led to the development of Mars Direct”. After struggling through the memo and the gory details of group formation, the plan itself is finally discussed.
The
first, possibly most important question posed is on reaching Mars. Zubrin however chooses to elaborate on more
on how we will pick up extra velocity, a stable and efficient trajectory, and
specifics regarding the total mass of the ERV and Hab. A very specific amount of food and water
(7,040 kg) is to be stocked in the Hab for the 2 ˝ round trip to Mars. That amount is slightly more than 15,500 lbs
of food. That amount alone is enough to
sustain the crew for more longer than 2 ˝ years, but will it all fit. With our technology and the plan of Mars
Direct, the spacecraft to be used in the mission would be about a fourth larger
than present day shuttles. Is that big
enough to hold every required tool and necessity? Zubrin rarely dove deep into the topic of
most concern; life on board a spaceship for 180 days. He briefly mentions living arrangements and
states the 1,083 square feet is “rather large compared to the accommodations
available to a middle-income apartment dweller in
After the common threats of space travel like radiation, zero-gravity, and unknown disease causing pathogens, Zubrin jumps directly into the process of beginning a colony on the red planet’s surface. This part of the book is very relevant concerning exploration of the surface and collecting samples. In terms of navigation, Zubrin described the known surface features on Mars and the potential errors that are posed. If the crew strays too far from the base, the dust storms and vast deserts could disorient them and they could be lost forever. Zubrin suggests using hand-held radios that relay signals off charged particles in the upper atmosphere. The calendar proposed does make it feasible to live for an extended period of time on Mars. It utilizes a device Zubrin invented called an Areogator. This tool is able give the month or season on Mars based on what month it is on Earth, and vice-versa.
From this point on, Zubrin explains the process of maintaining a livable habitat for humans on Mars. These are the chapters where it became very difficult to continue reading. It seems every page contains numbers of different chemical combinations for manufacturing plastics, PSI levels for soil, and kWh power for producing water. These topics and descriptions, as important as they are, make for a grueling read. These numbers and calculations are tricky to digest for many readers. One upside of the later discussions on colonization is the present of many photographs. Zubrin inserted many excellent visual aids showing a mature colony and even the first four steps of the initial landings.
Zubrin continued to describe ways we can change the temperature of Mars to make it seem more Earth like. I see this as being somewhat erroneous based on the fact that our planet is being destroyed by this same concept. If we choose to do this to Mars’ atmosphere we have no idea what the effect could be. We know Mars can have severe dust storms. We also know that the atmosphere can be severely depleted by humans, and that could result increased radiation. Before we start tweaking another planets’ atmosphere we need to corral our own.
The overall impression gained from this descriptive novel is a new way of approaching the Mars question. Zubrin has many great ideas and ways of making the mission a reality, but throwing around numbers and repeated ideas does not make for an entertaining book. This information should be formulated into a report and given to high authorities to review and consider. Since Zubrin stated that he has done the following, there must be flaws with his plan that he fails to bring to our attention. The Mars Direct plan is not the way to go to Mars. However, Zubrin has made important strides in finding a complete and solid plan when the time comes to develop a civilization on Mars.