Book Review: How We'll Live on Mars by Stephen L Petranek

This is a brief but informative book, about 77 pages with photographs in the middle of the book.  Brief doesn’t mean bad;  in fact, I think it’s rather good, pertaining to the intelligent person, even if they know little about space development.  In other words, it’s for anyone who is interested in this topic.

The author, Stephen Petranek, takes the Mars of what modern science has revealed to us through it’s probes, from Mariner to Curiosity and what theses probes have analyzed and found.  A brief history of rocketry and the proposals of using them for Mars exploration are also covered, from Robert Goddard and Werner von Braun in the early 20th century all the way down to Elon Musk of SpaceX and the Dutch entrepreneurs, Bas Lansdorp and Arno Wielders, who proposed the Mars One missions, being one way trips to Mars where people would go and live out the rest of their lives on the red planet.

In landing on Mars, Petranek anticipates what may go wrong, such as drilling for water through rock and permafrost and using the wrong drill bits.  Problems such as these are those the average person, and a rocket scientist would not anticipate.  He describes the climate, the thin atmosphere, the gases of which it is composed, and the radiation coming from the Sun and space, and how the first settlers will have to deal with them.  

In the last two chapters, he describes terraforming, making Mars more like Earth where one can live without spacesuits, and why we must go there.  The main reason is simply that we have to.

I agree.  Many people say that Mars is so dead and desolate (it is) that no one will want to go there.  I believe, that with the terraforming, and the minerals it holds that people will want to mine to make money, it will attract the right kind of settlers.  There’s another reason:  Earth is getting overpopulated, and troubles throughout the world, such as war and starvation, are multiplying, and people will want to escape that, going anywhere no matter what.  Any place, rather than staying where they are and suffering.

My own view is that we will, and must, settle and industrialize near Earth space, being the Moon and near Earth asteroids first before venturing on to Mars.  These are in Earth’s neighborhood, and we need to establish state of the art transportation and life support systems, along with bases that will support a trip to Mars before venturing there.  It may take 40 years, or 20, who knows.  

One thing I do like is the Mars One project, sending people on a one way trip where they will learn survival skills and to develop the resources there while we still develop the Moon and asteroids.  Unfortunately, they do not (yet) have the financing.

This book is brief, and the predicted date of first landing here is 2027.  Whether or not we make it on time, this book provides a good vision on how we can handle the challenges.  The Moon and near Earth space is not mentioned here, but that, in this case, is irrelevant.

As I stated, I myself believe in a step by step approach to Mars, going to the near Earth asteroids, the Moon, then Mars, then the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter (where the book ends), and eventually, out to the stars.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!