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How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Zubrin
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.82
You Save: $6.13 (44%)
New (35) Used (5) from $7.11
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 15231
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0307407187
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.4
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 So you want to be a Martian.......? January 6, 2009
OK, so if you have signed up for the trip of a lifetime, trying to escape justice off-world, or hoping to make your fortune on a new planet, then this guidebook is for you!
Written by Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society, and exponent of the 'Mars Direct' approach to settling Mars, nuclear, aeronautic and astronautic engineer, he KNOWS his way around the Red Planet, and shares his rich insights with us for a nominal fee.
EXCEPT, wait a minute, is this the Robert Zubrin that we have all learnt to follow through a daunting maze of detailed graphs, maths and diagrams to understand how going to Mars is not necessarily as expensive or as far in the future as NASA would have us believe?
Far from it. This Zubrin is the maestro of a `Tom Wolfe'-style Hitchhikers' SAS Rough Guide to a dynamic, socially diverse, techno-chic, exploitative, resource-rich, smart money melting pot of diverse and competing human interests.
It includes bold advice for buying a Mars rover, like `....if you can't lift it, don't buy it.......' that soundly inventories the pros and cons of the right survival skills and equipment to keep you both comfortable AND alive.
So what if your EVA suit air runs out miles from base? Just pour some water on peroxide-rich Mars regolith placed in a plastic bag and use your hand-held pump to repressurise your tanks with the released oxygen.
In an environment where the gravity is one-third of Earth's (Good), the air-pressure just one percent (Bad), where most of that is carbon dioxide (Very Bad), and the temperature ranges from anything like -200 to + 60F from polar regions to the equator (So-So), this is THE book that I will have in the rover's saddle-bags at all times. Hint: It doesn't use batteries either. I haven't even mentioned the radiation hazards yet.............
A humorous aspect of Dr. Zubrin. January 6, 2009
Dr Zubrin's books are always good and scientifically and technologically correct but that he also possesses such a large amount of very good humor was previously unknown to me. I have been laughing my head off reading it! Much of what you find in this book can be found in his previous books but not packaged with such an amount of very good humor that makes the reading and learning very easy, simple and attractive. Highly recommended!
Mars is easy January 4, 2009
Zubrin's witty little book is best when dealing with the gritty and practical advice on how to live on Mars. He makes telling points about how best to get to Mars, live on Mars' resources and thrive. The Yankee flavor shows through his sensible suggestions about to most easily use the resources at hand to make a living.
Where this book fails is in the social commentary - Mars and Martians are pretty roguish and perhaps not to be admired as much as Zubrin thinks they might be. Libertarians won't suddenly change their miserable track record by relocating to the new frontier.
But this book mostly succeeds where the technology is explained. Zubrin's punchy humor excoriating NASA's ideas for how to colonize Mars are often on target in my opinion, and I think that Zubrin's more practical approach would likely work more effectively if the goal is to colonize the planet and open up this new frontier.
Read this book for the practical technology delivered in a compelling, ascerbic but witty way. It will have you laughing out loud in agreement in a number of places.
Surprisingly Pleasant Read December 30, 2008
Having read Dr Zubrin's previous attempt at humor (The Holy Land), I faced this book with great trepidation. However, a friend forced a copy on me and insisted.
Zubrin has actually managed to sugar coat a great deal of information about the viability of Mars so it goes down smoothly. Even though the humor doesn't always work, I came away very convinced that a Mars colony is a real possibility and possibly even a necessity. The book is an comfortable read, and appropriate for anyone over about 15.
 Dissapointed purchase December 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Robert Zubrin assumes no progress in technology in the next 100 years that is not already planned. He assumes no progress in society; that we will still be wrestling with a socialistic NASA for the next 100 years.
As is usual with Zubrin, he knows all the answers and any contrary opinions are attacked with zeal. Zubrin has lots of good ideas and is worth looking at for mind stretching. He does not have the only good ideas.
He lost much of my respect for several smart-alec suggestions that stealing property was a way to augment your income.
I had hope of gifting this to some grandchildren, but was disappointed to find that it was targeted at a "mature audience" and advocated deception as a tool to success.
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