Full disclosure: I'm an astronaut candidate with Mars One, a non-profit organization that is seeking to put people permanently on Mars within the next decade. Much of Mars One's technology roadmap is based upon this book. So I am definitely coming at this with a certain bias.

I'm waiving my self-imposed rule in order to give this a 5-star rating without having re-read it yet. I'm doing so because I believe the content to be so solid and important to understanding our need to go to Mars as well as how best to do it. All in all, this is a very cogent and complete exposition of Zubrin's plan. There is a much more concise version, published as [b:Mars Direct: Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future: A Special from Tarcher/Penguin|17298280|Mars Direct Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future A Special from Tarcher/Penguin|Robert Zubrin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359384684s/17298280.jpg|23933929]. But the engineering details are missing from that book, and so may not be as convincing.

Some of this book's content gets a little repetitive, but that is because Zubrin is assuming (probably correctly) that some readers will skip about in the book, so he wants to ensure that his line of reasoning and evidence always hang together. And one can always skim over the redundant text. Zubrin has put a lot of thought in the end-to-end details of going to Mars. I cannot think of any aspect of it which he has not addressed fully to the extent of our current knowledge of the Red Planet. (Which reminds me: make sure you get the revised version of this book, published in 2011.) ( )

This book was so boring that I stopped about about 3 chapters

DNF @ 27% Robert Zubrin sure is full of himself.

This entire book is just one long proposal for HIS mission, Mars Direct, and why it’s the only one that will work. He explains all of the current propositions and mission plans and you start thinking “Oh, that’s pretty neat, I can definitly see that”. But then he goes, “But those will never work, and here’s why. My mission is the only way we can do it.” And in the various charts and graphcs he uses to prove his point, he essentially compares apples and oranges to make his apples more appealing. ( )

Really interesting book. ( )

Zubrin made the case for a cheap, efficient "Mars Direct" mission to send 4 people to Mars and keep them there for a couple years, using very available technology, in 1990. In the 2011 edition of this 1996 book, there were updates which made the case even stronger, and the case is stronger still today.

The funny thing is every one of the errors in the 1996 version was in underestimating the incompetence of governments, the high pace of non-aerospace technology development, and Elon Musk -- i.e. Zubrin was too conservative.

I personally would be very interested in going to Mars (one-way, even); the only counterbalance is if medical/life extension tech on earth gets dramatically better in the next 10-15 years vs. the same on Mars, so it becomes a choice of "go to Mars in 2025-2030" vs. "live for 150-200 years and go to Mars in 2050". ( )