Q&A: A Missionary for Mars Exploration
When it comes to the red planet, Robert Zubrin is a true believer and has spent decades agitating for a more ambitious NASA. The 54-year-old astronautical engineer is the president of the Mars Society and author of The Case for Mars, in which he proposes a Mars mission for which the fuel for the return trip would be made on the planet itself. He was consulted before the unveiling of NASA's plans this week to build a permanent settlement on the moon, a move the agency contends is a steppingstone to eventual travel to Mars.
What is your opinion about NASA's announcement this week?
I'm very much a believer that NASA needs to have a central driving mission. Basically the manned space program has accomplished nothing since 1973 except for the Hubble Telescope. They're just doing things to do them. But this can hardly be regarded as bold, a plan to do 14 years from now what they did 50 years before. They're also doing it in twice the time it took to do the first time. We could be on Mars in 10 years without a doubt. The idea that your strategic goal is the moon as opposed to Mars I think is wrong. I think it's too timid. I think it's, well, un-American.
What did you think about the announcement from NASA of evidence of liquid water on Mars?
I'm very excited about it. What this means is if we send people to Mars, we won't just be limited to looking for fossils but for life. All Earth life is the same at the biochemical level. It's all the same bricks, it's just put together in different formats. But does all life have to be like that?
What makes Mars a better option than the moon?
Mars compares to the moon in the coming age of exploration as North America compares to Greenland in the previous age of exploration. It might take a little more to travel to North America than to Greenland, but it is easier to sustain a colony there. Mars has resources that can be used to support the base. You can make fuel there. You can get water. On Mars you have the elements of life and you have the elements of industry. On the moon, you don't really have either.
Would attitudes have to change at NASA for us to go to Mars?
I think that we as a nation are going to need to be much more accepting of risk if we're going to be able to settle on the moon or Mars. Because if people insist that these trips be safe, they're going to have to wait a very long time. These are ships of exploration going out onto stormy seas. It's not just NASA, frankly, it's the American political class and body politic. The space shuttle program has a 98 percent success record, and it's regarded as unacceptable. Now I'm not saying shuttle failures are good, but I'm saying no exploration program in the past had a 98 percent success rate.
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