Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very convincing!, 4 April 1999
By A Customer
As an aerospace engineering student highly interested in space exploration (and wishing to go professional with this also) , I really found this book to be a real treat. Definitely was inspiring coming from an author that wishes to advance mankind technologically into the realm of space.. A view that I have concurred with ever since I was in grade school. The book was not just some bored rocket engineer's (or scientist's) science fiction memo, I found his plan extremely plausible and do-able. I especially liked the historical allusions he made throughout the account proving that the grand majority of the technologies used in Mars Direct have been done before in the past(and many for thousands of years). If they have done before, there is no reason why they can not be done again. I loved the clear explanation of his plan. He did not go into too much math , but he gave a clear picture in my mind the concepts involved. Zubrin is very knowledgable and while I was reading this book I knew that what he was saying was well-founded. A MUST READ for those interested in space exploration, astronomy, or aerospace engineering!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Content or context, hmm., 12 Jan 2008
The review guide states that the review is to be relevant to the content and/or context. In this case, their two rather different reviews. Personally, I find Zubrin's Mars Direct/Mars Colony plan (the content part) flawed in quite a few ways, here are a couple: 1) the "frontier spirit" arguement is used often, and I agree that humanity is at its best when challenged and exploration and colonisation certainly serves this goal. But the specific case for Mars, as opposed to the moons of Saturn/Jupiter, asteroid belts etc are not made. 2) Assumptions about the industry of a Mars colony, deuterium mining for use in fusion for example, are founded on an unproven theoretical industry and also, due to the prevelance of Helium 3, encourage a settlement on the moon instead. Asteroid mining is posited but this is an arguement for mining asteroids, Mars is superfluous to this. 3) The Mars Direct mission itself is a tight rope and although Zubrin convincingly deals with many of the dangers the book is, perhaps necessarily lean on specifics regards crew details (men? women? age?) and logistic details, I personally doubt the craft has enough space for food, water, spare parts etc although I happen to know many of these details have been worked out at later dates, the crewing level has now been raised to 6, those ammendments are not present here. And on and on. However, Zubrin is making a case, not a watertight arguement and would doubtless concede that the debate is far from over so, in the spirit of the context side of the review I would say buy this book, absolutely, the Mars Direct plan is an excellent, ingenious basic idea that deserves publicity and this book should be bought and debated by scientists, students, policymakers and the general public alike.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, but you can go first . . . ., 31 Oct 2000
Zubrin clearly outlines how a martian exploration may be possible using existing technology. He wigs out a bit when he tries to carry this thesis forward to a discussion of terraforming but if you have any interest in space exploration this is a must read, with some penetrating insight in to why NASA is probably not going to fulfill our aspirations in this direction anytime soon. So, if you can find anybody nuts enough to actually fly the thing . . . .
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by Robert Zubrin
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