The New World on MarsWhat We Can Create on the Red PlanetSummaryWithin a few years, humans will be able to voyage to Mars. SpaceX is at the forefront of companies already building fleets of spaceships to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America – to the then New World. We will settle the red planet, transforming its raw materials into resources and tackling the challenges that await us, creating a new frontier for humankind.Dr Robert Zubrin explains how populous Martian city-states will emerge, producing their own air, water, food, power and more. How they must be beautiful to attract settlers, and what that might look like. How the primary exports are unlikely to be material goods but intellectual products, created by a technically adept population in a frontier environment where people will be forced to innovate – including GMOs, robotics, AI and power production. Zubrin even predicts the red planet’s customs, social relations and government – of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights – that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw talented Earth immigrants.In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again’. Zubrin inspires us to embrace another magnificent future today. With the right pieces in place, his red planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars and beyond. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces on Earth when, together, we can create planets.
In steps Robert Zubrin, who has been thinking about how to both get humans to Mars and how they could live there for decades. In The New World on Mars, he is willing to let SpaceX do the driving to get to Mars, focusing instead on aspects of life on Mars from building habitats to social and governance structures.
Those who share that vision will find The New World on Mars reaffirming. Those who don’t may come away from the book seeing how people could live on Mars, but less convinced why one would want to go.
Just read this.I previously read The Case For Mars and was quite persuaded, and impressed. Zubrin knows a lot about the mechanics of how we could get humans to Mars.
It strikes me that Zubrin sees all of humanity's problems as things that can be solved by going to Mars. It becomes a bit tiresome to wade through his list of grievances and in each case find that- surprise surprise- going to Mars will cure them. To back up this belief, he continually refers to the settlement of the United States as proof that a newly created society will naturally lean towards freedom, prosperity, and progress. It's a very Ameri-centric viewpoint and seems to imply that no other people on earth enjoy the freedoms or quality of life that Americans do. (Newsflash: Canada, Australia, and most of Europe do not agree).
Just read this.The biggest unanswered question is, if a new society facing many technical challenges would inevitably become a forge for new ideas and a springboard for human progress, why has nobody attempted this on Earth yet? The polar regions and the oceans are all far more habitable than anywhere on Mars, and much easier to get to. Perhaps he has an answer to that, but if so, it's not to be found in this book.
There's also a problem with his claims about "freedom" and progress and government. As other writers, like Charles Stross, have pointed out, it seems more likely that these societies will have very strict rules and hierarchies in order to survive. On Mars, the risk to the entire society is much greater if somebody does not do their job, or if they make a mistake, or if they go rogue. One person forgetting to properly latch an airlock could kill a bunch of people. So people won't be able to just do their own thing and act like it is a libertarian utopia, they'll have to abide by the rules.
Robert Zubrin’s latest Mars book ...https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/463408/the-new-world-on-mars-by-zubrin-robert/9781802067002QuoteThe New World on MarsWhat We Can Create on the Red PlanetSummaryZubrin even predicts the red planet’s customs, social relations and government – of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights – that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw talented Earth immigrants.In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again’. Zubrin inspires us to embrace another magnificent future today. With the right pieces in place, his red planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars and beyond. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces on Earth when, together, we can create planets.And...QuoteQuote from: Blackstar on 11/22/2025 04:13 pmThere's also a problem with his claims about "freedom" and progress and government. As other writers, like Charles Stross, have pointed out, it seems more likely that these societies will have very strict rules and hierarchies in order to survive. On Mars, the risk to the entire society is much greater if somebody does not do their job, or if they make a mistake, or if they go rogue. Predicting a utopia is rather different from actually building a utopia. What I said, a good while ago:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=profile;u=13735;area=showposts;start=11160Quote from: John FornaroI think that there is a significant reason why we haven't gone back to the Moon, and it is not a matter of technology. Had we begun colonizing the Moon in 1969, by now, the Moon would be clamoring for political independance. It is this issue, the idea that political freedom might spread out of the control of the global power structure, that may be underlying our lack of space exploration up to this point.There are still technical reasons of course. And the biggest of these is cost. We need more mass production in our space effort, and less one-of-a-kind thinking.Is the problem today more a matter of technology and less a matter of politics? Mars literally will be a brave new world.
The New World on MarsWhat We Can Create on the Red PlanetSummaryZubrin even predicts the red planet’s customs, social relations and government – of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights – that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw talented Earth immigrants.In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again’. Zubrin inspires us to embrace another magnificent future today. With the right pieces in place, his red planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars and beyond. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces on Earth when, together, we can create planets.
Quote from: Blackstar on 11/22/2025 04:13 pmThere's also a problem with his claims about "freedom" and progress and government. As other writers, like Charles Stross, have pointed out, it seems more likely that these societies will have very strict rules and hierarchies in order to survive. On Mars, the risk to the entire society is much greater if somebody does not do their job, or if they make a mistake, or if they go rogue. Predicting a utopia is rather different from actually building a utopia. What I said, a good while ago:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=profile;u=13735;area=showposts;start=11160Quote from: John FornaroI think that there is a significant reason why we haven't gone back to the Moon, and it is not a matter of technology. Had we begun colonizing the Moon in 1969, by now, the Moon would be clamoring for political independance. It is this issue, the idea that political freedom might spread out of the control of the global power structure, that may be underlying our lack of space exploration up to this point.There are still technical reasons of course. And the biggest of these is cost. We need more mass production in our space effort, and less one-of-a-kind thinking.Is the problem today more a matter of technology and less a matter of politics? Mars literally will be a brave new world.
There's also a problem with his claims about "freedom" and progress and government. As other writers, like Charles Stross, have pointed out, it seems more likely that these societies will have very strict rules and hierarchies in order to survive. On Mars, the risk to the entire society is much greater if somebody does not do their job, or if they make a mistake, or if they go rogue.
I think that there is a significant reason why we haven't gone back to the Moon, and it is not a matter of technology. Had we begun colonizing the Moon in 1969, by now, the Moon would be clamoring for political independance. It is this issue, the idea that political freedom might spread out of the control of the global power structure, that may be underlying our lack of space exploration up to this point.There are still technical reasons of course. And the biggest of these is cost. We need more mass production in our space effort, and less one-of-a-kind thinking.
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Charles Stross is far left, he literally claimed that we shouldn't try to make SF real, a very stupid thing for a supposedly SF author (who hasn't written much SF in recent decade) to say. I'm pretty sure he also claimed Elon Musk's Mars plan is a scam, but apparently he disabled google indexing on his blog so I couldn't confirm this.This is all just to say anything he said about Mars should be taken with a big grain of salt, because it's politically motivated/biased.
Quote from: thespacecow on 12/01/2025 12:45 amCharles Stross is far left, he literally claimed that we shouldn't try to make SF real, a very stupid thing for a supposedly SF author (who hasn't written much SF in recent decade) to say. I'm pretty sure he also claimed Elon Musk's Mars plan is a scam, but apparently he disabled google indexing on his blog so I couldn't confirm this.This is all just to say anything he said about Mars should be taken with a big grain of salt, because it's politically motivated/biased.Do you have any refutations to Stross's actual arguments, or is ad hominem the best you can do?
Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.”...These men collectively have more than half a trillion dollars to spend on their quest to realize inventions culled from the science fiction and fantasy stories that they read in their teens. But this is tremendously bad news because the past century’s science fiction and fantasy works widely come loaded with dangerous assumptions.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 12/25/2025 01:41 pmQuote from: thespacecow on 12/01/2025 12:45 amCharles Stross is far left, he literally claimed that we shouldn't try to make SF real, a very stupid thing for a supposedly SF author (who hasn't written much SF in recent decade) to say. I'm pretty sure he also claimed Elon Musk's Mars plan is a scam, but apparently he disabled google indexing on his blog so I couldn't confirm this.This is all just to say anything he said about Mars should be taken with a big grain of salt, because it's politically motivated/biased.Do you have any refutations to Stross's actual arguments, or is ad hominem the best you can do?I did some of that in the Adam Becker thread, the part refuting the Torment Nexus meme applies here too. But it takes a lot of time to refute BS, aka Brandolini's law. If you ask nicely I can do it for Stross' article too. I assume I don't need to refute the claim that Elon's Mars plan is a scam?Here's an appetizer:Quote from: Charles StrossBillionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.”...These men collectively have more than half a trillion dollars to spend on their quest to realize inventions culled from the science fiction and fantasy stories that they read in their teens. But this is tremendously bad news because the past century’s science fiction and fantasy works widely come loaded with dangerous assumptions.1. Elon Musk wanting to colonize Mars has not affected our life today, not directly, since it's not even started. He did built SpaceX based on his Mars dream, and that does have very positive effect on our lives today (literally saving people's lives in some cases), so not sure why Stross thinks this is a bad thing.2. The giant orbital habitats Bezos wanted is based on the work of physicist Gerard K. O'Neill, it's rooted in science and engineering, not "science fiction and fantasy stories"3. Similarly, the term "artificial intelligence" was coined by computer scientist John McCarthy, so once again that's science and engineering, not science fiction or fantasy.4. Life extension is not just science fiction either, there are respectable scientists working on it, for example David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School.
Zubrin has been making the "why Mars?" argument for over three decades now, and I don't think he has achieved much success.
This remains primarily a discussion about the characters involved, not the issues.
This remains primarily a discussion about the characters involved, not the issues.The disconnect that I see between Zubrin's vision and the likely reality are well laid out by Blackstar above. Essentially, it's that any functioning Mars colony would require a very high degree of adherence to rules that it would be incompatible with the libertarian utopian vision. There would be almost no personal freedom, because everybody would have to work so hard to keep the place running. It's a more realistic but less compelling vision.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 12/26/2025 07:13 amThis remains primarily a discussion about the characters involved, not the issues.The disconnect that I see between Zubrin's vision and the likely reality are well laid out by Blackstar above. Essentially, it's that any functioning Mars colony would require a very high degree of adherence to rules that it would be incompatible with the libertarian utopian vision. There would be almost no personal freedom, because everybody would have to work so hard to keep the place running. It's a more realistic but less compelling vision.I can't comment on Zubrin's book since I haven't read it, but:1. High degree of adherence to rules doesn't conflict with liberal democracy, we have democratic countries with very high degree of adherence to rules, Japan for example.2. Freedom is relative, going from millions of pages of federal/local laws and regulations to a few thousands strict rules is still freedom. Japan builds significantly more new housing units per capita than the US, primarily due to less regulation, that's an example of more freedom even with very high degree of adherence to rules.3. People working hard to keep our society running too, as the saying goes "society is only three meals away from anarchy".4. I don't think it would require "everybody" to work hard to keep a Mars city running, by the time there is a Mars city AI and robotics would automate most of the work already. We already have dark factories and fully automated ports right here on Earth, do people really think we need hard labor on Mars to maintain ECLSS?
And because the cost of breaking the rules in such a society can be the death of the society, there will be a lot more strict enforcement of those rules.
Quote from: thespacecow on 12/27/2025 02:21 amQuote from: Kaputnik on 12/26/2025 07:13 amThis remains primarily a discussion about the characters involved, not the issues.The disconnect that I see between Zubrin's vision and the likely reality are well laid out by Blackstar above. Essentially, it's that any functioning Mars colony would require a very high degree of adherence to rules that it would be incompatible with the libertarian utopian vision. There would be almost no personal freedom, because everybody would have to work so hard to keep the place running. It's a more realistic but less compelling vision.I can't comment on Zubrin's book since I haven't read it, but:1. High degree of adherence to rules doesn't conflict with liberal democracy, we have democratic countries with very high degree of adherence to rules, Japan for example.2. Freedom is relative, going from millions of pages of federal/local laws and regulations to a few thousands strict rules is still freedom. Japan builds significantly more new housing units per capita than the US, primarily due to less regulation, that's an example of more freedom even with very high degree of adherence to rules.3. People working hard to keep our society running too, as the saying goes "society is only three meals away from anarchy".4. I don't think it would require "everybody" to work hard to keep a Mars city running, by the time there is a Mars city AI and robotics would automate most of the work already. We already have dark factories and fully automated ports right here on Earth, do people really think we need hard labor on Mars to maintain ECLSS?A key argument for Zubrin's utopia is that the scarcity of human labour will lead to higher standards of workers' rights. This is the opposite of the position you are describing.Perhaps you should read the book before commenting further.
