The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet

The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet
Author: Robert Zubrin
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Published: February 20, 2024
Publisher: Diversion Books
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: July 8, 2024
My rating:

Thoughts

I believe this was the May pick for the Planetary Society Book Club. So far since I’ve been a member starting in January 2024, I’ve read each of the picks. And as much as I hate to say it, and despite my final rating, I wasn’t very thrilled with this book.

First, the good. Dr. Robert Zubrin is obviously incredibly smart. I mean, he’s an astronautical engineer for goodness sakes. I didn’t totally care for all the math throughout. Sometimes I got lost. However, it was great seeing reason behind his words. There were extensive notes for each chapter as well, which just added further credence to his claims.

The first half of the book (chapters 1-7) were fascinating to me. Each chapter tackles a different subject from getting to Mars, creating resources when we get there, how we’ll move around, and different options for cities on the Red Planet. In some cases (quite a few, actually), there were artist renderings of cities or other newly-habitable spaces created in context.

Zubrin seems to have a love affair going on with Elon Musk, but SpaceX and its future fleet of Starships were great to use as examples throughout the book. It would have been impossible for the author to give an example from every current venture or possible future ones without leaving someone out. So many people have heard of SpaceX or at least Elon Musk, it seemed like a good example to me. Plus, having the Starship as a through-line throughout the book was helpful as it would have been confusing if the author was trying to be “fair” by using a different example every time. However, now I’m wondering who is going to open the first used Starship dealer on Mars…

Those first seven chapters really had me hooked on getting to the Red Planet. While chapters 10 and 11 were good (on invention and terraforming Mars, respectively), the second half of the book got a bit preachy.

On to the bad. I thought about putting this in the “ugly” section below, but I know he wasn’t serious. At least, I hope he wasn’t. What am I talking about? Glad you asked – a case for slavery. What?! Like I said, I don’t think he was serious. But I honestly had a hard time knowing for sure. He did throw out that indentured servitude may be a way for people to afford immigrating to Mars. I mean, it probably would have been best to say they would have to “work off their debts” instead of indentured servitude.

I have to say that the parts Taxes on Mars (pp 177-178) and The Practice of Law (pp 178-181) and, if I’m being honest, Crime and Punishment (pp 181-185) rubbed me the wrong way. First, I completely agree that the tax system could be simplified. But seriously?

[It] is important that the tax structure be as simple as possible to prevent the create of a vast parasitical caste of tax accountants such as currently exists in America. Many of those involved in this racket are quite talented, and their relegation to an activity that produces nothing whatsoever of value to society is a massive waste of social capital that a Mars city would ill be able to afford.

Robert Zubrin: The New World on Mars, Chapter 8, “Social Customs on Mars,” page 177 (Taxes on Mars) – bolding is mine

As an accountant (albeit not a tax accountant), I appreciate his some of his sentiments. But to the author I would say, I don’t know who wronged you or in what way you think you’ve been cheated, but check yourself. Just about every tax accountant I know would absolutely love it if things were different. But they’re not. So write to your congressperson. Write to your senator. Hell, write in your journal about it. But don’t berate the people who are trying to help you, yes you, a common layperson, to decipher the indecipherable spiderweb of a tax code.

He has similar colorful things to say about lawyers. I’ll leave it to you to think about what he might have to say about them. But in short, he says Mars doesn’t need lawyers. Right… even though he says there do need to be laws and rights and contracts… but we don’t need lawyers. Okay. I suppose the author is also a legal expert and assumes that everyone who moves to Mars will be nice, upstanding citizens. Even though he also argues that some degenerates on Earth will want to go to Mars for lack of any place better for them on Earth. Uh huh…

This just popped into my head, but it was kind of funny how he knocks education. He argues for some classroom learning and some on-the-job type training and getting people through school sooner so they can be productive members of society. Okay, I can buy that. I do thing there’s a fundamental lack of appreciation for trade schools or for people who get a high school diploma (or GED) and go straight into the workforce. But it was a little comical how much he stepped on higher education and this need to get certificates to prove something or whatever. Okay, Doctor. Noted.

Last, the ugly. I don’t mind reading political non-fiction. But I don’t like it when it sneaks itself into other things. Sure, Zubrin can have his political viewpoints. Hell, I even agree with him in a lot of places. Obviously a Mars colony will need to have some kind of political structure. In this book, the author gets way too into American and other (Earth) global politics. I would have preferred just his opinion on how Mars’s government should be set up or even a couple options that he could put forth. Instead, we get long diatribes of how things are on Earth with a conclusion of “that won’t work on Mars.” Really? I get that we need to cover some bases here, especially with known forms of government. However, there was quite a bit of unnecessary facetious language and borderline name calling. Don’t stoop so low in what should be an encouraging look at how to expand the human population past the confines of Earth.

Overall, I did give this 3 out of 5 stars. But that’s not a very strong 3. I almost gave it 2 stars, but thought that since I enjoyed more than half of it, maybe 2.5 to 3 stars is warranted. The author has numerous other books, several of which sound very interesting. I’m not completely turned off to him, so I’ll give him another shot in the future.