Mars Direct

Mars Direct PDF

Author: Robert Zubrin

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-02-12

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 1101617861

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“Bob Zubrin really, nearly alone, changed our thinking on this issue.” —Carl Sagan, The Denver Post If you ever daydream about space travel and human space flight—or hope to one day rove the Red Planet alongside Curiosity—then MARS DIRECT will teach you how we can get there The human race is at a crossroads. In the coming decades, we will make decisions regarding our human spaceflight program that will lead to one of two familiar futures: the open universe of Star Trek, where we allow ourselves the opportunity to spread our wings and attempt to flourish as an interplanetary species—or the closed, dystopian, and ultimately self-destructive world of Soylent Green, constantly at war with one another over humanity’s “limited” resources. If we plan to survive ourselves and one day travel to the stars, the human race’s next stepping-stone must be a manned mission to and the eventual colonization of Mars. In this four-part e-special, Mars Society founder Dr. Robert Zubrin details the challenges of a manned Earth-to-Mars mission. Challenges which, according to Zubrin, we are technologically more prepared to overcome than the obstacles of the missions to the moon of the sixties and seventies. Dr. Zubrin’s relatively simple plan, called Mars Direct, could feasibly have humans on the surface of Mars within a decade. Zubrin also discusses the current predicament of NASA, the promise of privatized space flight from companies like SpaceX, and the larger implication behind the absolute necessity to open the final frontier and transform from a planetary society into an interplanetary society. Our future as a species requires us to take baby steps away from the cradle that is planet Earth or, ultimately, perish here.

The Case For Mars

The Case For Mars PDF

Author: Robert Zubrin

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-12-11

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1471109887

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Since the beginning of human history Mars has been an alluring dream; the stuff of legends, gods, and mystery. The planet most like ours, it has still been thought impossible to reach, let alone explore and inhabit. Now with the advent of a revolutionary new plan, all this has changed. Leading space exploration authority Robert Zubrin has crafted a daring new blueprint, Mars Direct, presented here with illustrations, photographs, and engaging anecdotes. The Case for Mars is not a vision for the far future or one that will cost us impossible billions. It explains step-by-step how we can use present-day technology to send humans to Mars within ten years; actually produce fuel and oxygen on the planet's surface with Martian natural resources; how we can build bases and settlements; and how we can one day "terraform" Mars; a process that can alter the atmosphere of planets and pave the way for sustainable life.

The Case for Mars

The Case for Mars PDF

Author: Robert Zubrin

Publisher: Free Press

Published: 2021-02-02

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1982172924

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The Case for Mars makes living in space seem more possible than ever in this updated 25th anniversary edition, featuring the latest information on the planet's exploration and the drive to send humans there. Since the beginning of human history, Mars has been an alluring dream—the stuff of legends, gods, and mystery. The planet most like ours, it had long been thought impossible to reach, let alone explore and inhabit. But that is changing fast. In February 2021, the American rover Perseverance will touch down on Mars. Equipped with a powerful suite of scientific instruments—including some that will attempt to make oxygen from the Martian atmosphere—the rover also carries a helicopter that will take spectacular panoramic movies from the air. Most exciting of all, a spectrometer onboard may find evidence of fossils left behind by microbes millions of years ago, when the planet was warm and wet, proving at last that life on Earth is not unique, but a general phenomenon in the universe. Meanwhile, in Boca Chica, Texas, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has created a shipyard that is building and testing the vessels that will take humans to Mars before this decade is out. Leading space exploration expert Robert Zubrin crafted the daring blueprint for humanity’s reach to the Red Planet twenty-five years ago, when he first published The Case for Mars. Now, in this updated edition, he looks to the future once more to describe how—in an era when the American space program and private companies like SpaceX are racing to send astronauts to Mars—our first colonies there are imminent. In the grand tradition of successful explorers, Zubrin calls for a travel-light and live-off-the-land approach to Martian settlement. He explains how scientists can use present-day technology to send humans to Mars, produce fuel and oxygen on the planet’s surface with its own natural resources, build bases and communities, and one day, terraform—or alter the atmosphere of the planet in order to pave the way for sustainable life. As a landmark new mission opens the decisive campaign to take humans to the Red Planet, Zubrin lays out a comprehensive plan to build life on a new world.

From Habitability to Life on Mars

From Habitability to Life on Mars PDF

Author: Nathalie A. Cabrol

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 0128099364

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From Habitability to Life on Mars explores the current state of knowledge and questions on the past habitability of Mars and the role that rapid environmental changes may have played in the ability of prebiotic chemistry to transition to life. It investigates the role that such changes may have played in the preservation of biosignatures in the geological record and what this means for exploration strategies. Throughout the book, the authors show how the investigation of terrestrial analogs to early Martian habitats under various climates and environmental extremes provide critical clues to understand where, what and how to search for biosignatures on Mars. The authors present an introduction to the newest developments and state-of-the-art remote and in situ detection strategies and technologies that are being currently developed to support the upcoming ExoMars and Mars 2020 missions. They show how the current orbital and ground exploration is guiding the selection for future landing sites. Finally, the book concludes by discussing the critical question of the implications and ethics of finding life on Mars. Edited by the lead on a NASA project that searches for habitability and life on Mars leading to the Mars 2020 mission Presents the evidence, questions and answers we have today (including a summary of the current state of knowledge in advance of the ESA ExoMars and NASA Mars 2020 missions) Includes contributions from authors directly involved in past, current and upcoming Mars missions Provides key information as to how Mars rovers, such as ExoMars and Mars 2020, will address the search for life on Mars with their instrumentation

Making Time on Mars

Making Time on Mars PDF

Author: Zara Mirmalek

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0262043858

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An examination of how the daily work of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers was organized across three sites on two planets using local Mars time. In 2004, mission scientists and engineers working with NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) remotely operated two robots at different sites on Mars for ninety consecutive days. An unusual feature of this successful mission was that it operated on Mars time—the daily work was organized across three sites on two planets according to two Martian time zones. In Making Time on Mars, Zara Mirmalek shows that this involved more than a resetting of wristwatches; the team's struggle to synchronize with Mars time involved technological and communication breakdowns, informal workarounds, and extra work to support the technology that was intended to support people. Her account of how NASA created an entirely new temporality for the MER mission offers insights about the assumptions behind the organizational relationship between clock time and work. Mirmalek, herself a member of the mission team, offers an insider's view of the MER workplace and community. She describes the discord among MER's multiple temporalities and examines issues of professional identity that helped shape the experience of working according to Mars time. Considering time and work relationships through a multidisciplinary lens, Mirmalek shows how contemporary and historical human–technology relationships inform assumptions about the unalterability of clock time. She argues that the organizational connection between clock time and work, although still operational, is outdated.

The Case for Space

The Case for Space PDF

Author: Robert Zubrin

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 1633885348

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"A new space race has begun. But the rivals in this case are not superpowers but competing entrepreneurs. These daring pioneers are creating a revolution in spaceflight that promises to transform the near future. Astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin spells out the potential of these new developments in an engrossing narrative that is visionary yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges. Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper. The new generation of space explorers has already achieved a major breakthrough by creating reusable rockets. Zubrin foresees more rapid innovation, including global travel from any point on Earth to another in an hour or less; orbital hotels; moon bases with incredible space observatories; human settlements on Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of the outer planets; and then, breaking all limits, pushing onward to the stars."--Publisher's website.

Dynamic Mars

Dynamic Mars PDF

Author: Richard J. Soare

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2018-08-07

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 0128130199

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Dynamic Mars: Recent and Current Landscape Evolution of the Red Planet presents the latest observations, interpretations, and explanations of geological change at the surface or near-surface of this terrestrial body. These changes raise questions about a decades-old paradigm, formed largely in the aftermath of very coarse Mariner-mission imagery in the 1960s, suggesting that much of the interesting geological activity on Mars occurred deep in its past, eons ago. The book includes discussions of (1) Mars’ ever-changing atmosphere and the impact of this on the planet’s surface and near-surface; (2) the possible involvement of water in relatively new, if not contemporary, gully-like flows and slope streaks (i.e. recurring slope lineae); and (3) the identification of a broad suite of agents and processes (i.e. glacial, periglacial, aeolian, meteorological, volcanic, and meteoric) that are actively revising surface and near-surface landscapes, landforms, and features on a local, regional, and hemispheric scale. Highly illustrated and punctuated by data from the most recent Mars missions, Dynamic Mars is a valuable resource for all levels of research in the geological history of Mars, as well as of the three other terrestrial planets. Utilizes observational and model-based data as well as geological context to frame the understanding of the dynamic surface and near-surface of Mars Presents a broad spectrum of highly regarded experts and themes to discuss and evaluate the geological history of late and current Mars Includes extensive and detailed imagery to clearly illustrate these themes, discussions, and evaluations

Geographies of Mars

Geographies of Mars PDF

Author: K. Maria D. Lane

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0226470784

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This volume "explores the origins of our Martian obsession in the late nineteenth century" and examines "the way turn-of-the-century Americans and Europeans thought about space, knowledge, and power." The author paints a picture of how "scientists and the public saw [Mars] around the beginning of the 20th century, when canals on the Red Planet seemed a very real possibility." It is a story of mountain observatories, of fieldwork conducted at a distance, and of how Mars's geographers sought social and scientific legitimacy, exploring how astronomy and geography intersected in the debates over the existence of life on Mars.

Mars Geological Enigmas

Mars Geological Enigmas PDF

Author: Richard Soare

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2021-05-23

Total Pages: 556

ISBN-13: 0128202467

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Mars Geological Enigmas: From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day presents outstanding questions on the geology of Mars and divergent viewpoints based on varying interpretations and analyses. The result is a robust and comprehensive discussion that provides opportunities for planetary scientists to develop their own opinions and ways forward. Each theme opens with an introduction that includes background on the topic and lays out questions to be addressed. Alternate perspectives are covered for each topic, including methods, observations, analyses, and in-depth discussion of the conclusions. Chapters within each theme reference each other to facilitate comparison and deeper understanding of divergent opinions. Offers a transchronological view of the geological history of Mars, addressing thematic questions from a broad temporal perspective Discusses outstanding questions on Mars from diverging perspectives Includes key questions and answers, as well as a look ahead to which puzzles remain to be solved