Robert Zubrin’s 1996 book The Case for Mars (co-authored by Richard Wagner) adeptly combined soaring technological ambition with nuts-and-bolts engineering practicality to make a persuasive argument for human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization (Tarcher/Putnam), is a disappointing follow-up. Zubrin’s latest book extends his vision to the outer solar system and beyond, but in so doing veers far from the earlier manifesto’s hardheaded pragmatism. And it’s not as well written.
The book is divided into three sections, patterned after Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev’s classification of advanced civilizations into Type I (controlling a single planet); Type II (colonizing a solar system); and Type III (operating on a galactic scale).
Zubrin’s Type I section ("Completing Global Civilization") is bland. He writes with some optimism about near-term satellite and rocket ventures, but states (correctly, in my view) that "human beings will never settle Earth orbit, because there is nothing there to settle. We need to reach beyond."
And so we are off to Type II ("Creating a Spacefaring Civilization"). Here, Zubrin recaps his argument for colonizing Mars (and not our relatively resource-poor moon), and adds a few odd twists -- such as that Mars should have direct electronic democracy. (He doesn’t note that the idea’s been touted for Earth by H. Ross Perot).
Zubrin also claims the evidence for fossilized life in martian
has held up "quite well," an assertion with which few scientists would agree.
Gearing up for settlement of the outer solar system, Zubrin argues that Saturn’s moons are better prospects than Jupiter’s, and predicts the four giant gas planets will be the "Persian Gulf of the solar system" someday with their vast supplies of the (potential) nuclear-fusion fuel helium-3. Well, maybe.
In the book’s Type III section ("Entering Galactic Civilization"), Zubrin gets even more speculative. He sketches out some ideas for interstellar travel, then delves into questions about extraterrestrial civilizations. They’re out there, he’s pretty sure, but may not have yet organized themselves into a "galactic club."
However, they may have sent bacteria through space to get evolution going on Earth and as such, Zubrin argues that we should try to detect starships through our telescopes -- in order to welcome our relatives if nothing else.
And once the galactic club is organized, we might have what it takes to control the laws of nature and create new universes. From there, needless to say, "We may be on a path to something truly astounding."
This is, of course, entertaining stuff. But unlike The Case for Mars, this book serves primarily as entertainment.
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