Dr. Robert Zubrin - The New World on Mars: What Can We Create on the Red Planet?

For more information on the Mars Society, visit www.marssociety.org/
Recorded August 5, 2023
From the Science Panels at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas (STLV 57-Year Mission)

[@willreznicek4202]

Always love a good Zubrin Mars talk.

[@davidyeoman4500]

Never a letdown! Unending enthusiast.

[@adrianstrand1120]

‘Zubrin City’ one day there will be on Mars. Could listen to him all day 👏🏻

[@bubbajones6907]

I was thinking New New York, or New Jonestown.

[@MrFranklitalien]

terrific presentation I wish more people shared Robert's optimism

[@petermiesler6444]

It pretty tough for folks who are aware of what we are doing to our planet's own life support systems, to think of it "optimism" - somewhat disconnected from physical reality, but hey what are we, if we stop fantasizing.

[@LuciFeric137]

Dr. Zubrin sees the big picture better than anyone.

[@bubbajones6907]

Yes, I like how he recognises that natural resources only exist thanks to people.

[@pencil12345]

And all the details!

[@marsspacex6065]

Mars is that crucial first step to lead to the giant leap into the universe.

[@replica1052]

in an infinite universe it makes sense to catch solar wind - pull cables from pole to pole slightly offset for the dynamo effect (mars as mega machine )

[@MyKharli]

No it is not , first we must prove we will not destroy earth as a viable eco system for humans and were clearly not doing that . We do not become a magically better species on mars !

[@replica1052]

@@MyKharli (to master a solar system as identity is a talent to explore )

[@replica1052]

@@MyKharli * to surrect planets involve all dimensions -including to master a solar system as identity

[@MyKharli]

yes but hypergobbldegook splurgifies the difficulties , you splurge ?@@replica1052

[@quinto190]

Some good thoughts on how to create a society on Mars... What people (mostly "western") tend to forget, is that we as animals have co-evolved with plants over the last 60 million years or so. What our bodies give away, plants take up and vice versa. Space colonization will not work without plants or will be much much harder by doing everything technically. The easiest way is to take the ecological system that already works on Earth and establish it on Mars! The necessary microbial communities can be established by bringing a couple of tons of healthy soil over. As soon as composting works on Mars, half the game is won...

[@TraditionalAnglican]

Another reason for using lots of Starships to colonize Mars after we’ve proven we can live there,

[@quinto190]

@@TraditionalAnglican I agree, volume is the right approach here.

[@2150dalek]

Carl Sagan said something similar about bringing plants to Mars.....some people think there already are some plants there.

[@quinto190]

@@2150dalek Algae and cyanobacteria might... Their spores maybe could survive space travel, as the growth on the outside of the ISS indicates. But then they would have come from Earth to Mars. For higher plants I see no evidence yet, that they can survive the rough conditions on Mars' surface.

[@SanctuaryLife]

Hollywood has proven you can live off Potatoes on Mars, and Rob has proven you can film a Mars Conference on a Potato, what can't potatoes do?

[@MyKharli]

Potatoes are clearly a superior species with expectations well rooted to the ground

[@rhyusarmiento6530]

Love the spirit

[@ausratliff9571]

Freedom

[@amritanshusingh9946]

Marvellous presentation!

[@quinto190]

Very true... what future do we choose, the Star Trek future or one of limited identities that fight each other?

[@KuopassaTv]

Isn't Star Trek mostly about warring factions

[@quinto190]

@@KuopassaTv You have a point there. I guess, that's a concession, that Roddenberry and the later writers made to have a successful TV show and to reflect on the realities here. But it wasn't the aim. This reminds me, that the science fiction we had in Eastern Europe before 1990 was even more peaceful. Great books there, but only maybe 5% of the people in those countries have read some of them. A TV series is much more accessible...

[@anthonybellmunt3103]

Dr Zubrin has always been an inspiration to me. Even if we can have a future Mars that can support only our flora, if not our fauna, for centuries to come; it will be so, so worth it! I'd still like to have a magnetosphere though! I like to use a compass!

[@EricNeedle]

"Mars will need to be free because invention will be fundamental to Mars and freedom is fundamental to invention." - Dr. Robert Zubrin

[@dougspace6734]

Excellent presentation. I believe that language will be a primary factor determining which groups will choose to become independent. Speaking of which, there wasn't mention of the Outer Space Treaty. Groups on Mars who declare their independence won't bell sign up and hence won't be bound by it.

[@replica1052]

to master a solar system as identity is a talent to explore -for everyone alive and everyone to come alive for all of eternity (rockets are eternal )

[@davidguy209]

Mars Society - surely you've got the resources to give us better audio...

[@TheNavalAviator]

Ngl, Zubrin is a really distinguished thinker on these pragmatic affairs and has a lot of original ideas that ring very true.

[@mkb7001]

To boldly go.

[@KuopassaTv]

Meh

[@TheBassgod14]

DeForest Kelley Theater 3:30 pm #STLV 2023

[@TraditionalAnglican]

Can’t wait to throw Dr. Zubrin on to a Mars bound Starship! 😅 Don’t worry, Robert, you can always cheer the home team on!

[@paulgowan2205]

In the meantime, how about making sure the Zubrin library doesn't burn to the ground by recording a hologram of Dr. Zubrin's wisdom and life experience that can be accessed interactively by future young Martians interested in the man who did so much to make their civilization possible?

[@Eduardude]

Way cool, but it's very questionable whether fetuses will be able to gestate properly in 1/3 gravity.

[@aresmars2003]

I love Zubrin, even when I think we'll never go to Mars, or not hundreds or thousands anyway. But the visions of humans on Mars certainly drives our imagination.

[@aresmars2003]

I think Musk's original proposal was good - send a self-regulated greenhouse to Mars, and grow some microbes and plants and see how long we can keep them alive. Let Vegas take some bets. But more important see if we can beat our expectations and see what systems fail us first.

[@aresmars2003]

My second choice would be Mars Base Alpha on Phobos. Keep people in orbit to real-time control rovers on the surface, faster exploration, and no need to blast off again. From Mars Orbit at phobos you've already got 70% as much kinetic energy needed to reach escape velocity back to earth.

[@dougspace6734]

At Starbase, TX, SpaceX is not only developing a super heavy lift vehicle but the factories to build a fleet of them! It's time to open our minds to the real possibility of settlement at the scale that Elon envisions. Their Raptor engine production rate makes the probabilities of large-scale settlement of the Moon and Mars reasonable.

[@MyKharli]

Its worse than hyperloop scale bonkers in the actual details apart from cgi .@@aresmars2003

[@mikel.1767]

A captivating and enlightening presentation by the always excellent Zubrin ! But delivering it with such a poor video and audio capture is a disgrace, shame to the incompetent operator !

[@justbecauseOK]

it is just a taste of life on mars with these jerks Musk and Zubrin.....what a hell scape of hypocrisy, hate, misinformation and division. All set in a lovely freezing climate with no oxygen, no blue sky and toxic soils.....good luck !

[@THX..1138]

On the $700,000 price tag per person to get to Mars... It cost America a million dollars per soldier deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. We sent 1.5 million to those wars. They were sent to occupy deserts as stark and barren as Mars with at least as high a chance of death and no chance of building a life there. So I don't buy that cost and risk are credible deterrents to colonizing Mars. We and I mean America alone if we had to could do it. We just have to decide to do it.

[@brycedyck8450]

I am afraid Mars is far deadlier than any land environment on earth. Don't believe me? I am pretty sure soldiers in Iraq did not need pressure suits to survive😂 It is not a question of cost. It is a question of whether it will succeed or not. And only fools can convince themselves a Mars colony would be successful

[@THX..1138]

@@brycedyck8450 Combat's a pretty deadly environment. They needed armored vehicles and head to toe body armor whenever they left their bases and still 8,400 of them died. No sending 1.5 million people to fight over who controls a desert on the other side of the world cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Comparatively speaking colonizing Mars is cheap, and safe, and potentially a helluva lot more rewarding.

[@MyKharli]

Lol , can i have some of what your on ?

[@faheyplayer]

I’m feeling a huge disturbance n the force when Bob mentions the connection to pioneer past. one thing is for sure, if the Martians are going to feel a unity, it will be because of old tropes of the frontier. These tropes existed both in the West, e.g. ‘go west’ and for the Soviets too, who vaunted ‘to the East!’ as the Russian influence crept to the East during the 19th century. And to Crimea.

[@paulgowan2205]

It's a good vision statement that tries to keep things real. It's not Cliodynamics but Peter Turchin can be consulted. I would like to hear other vision statements in parallel with this without criticism so I'm debating about whether or not to nitpick about the historical lack of enforcement of IP rights between the U.S.A. and the U.K. and hearing the word "lecture" being used. However, I could see lectures as an expression of freedom of speech and the communication of ideas while training is more like KidZania without lectures. The children could even chat with an interactive recorded hologram of Dr. Zubrin. 500 years from now nobody is going to care what hapenned in Syria or Iraq ...

[@jamesdyhouse2490]

Every student a teacher,e every teacher a school all learn as apprentice mentorship to develop mastery to learn how to learn

[@gagarinone]

That must be the best comment on the net!

[@TraditionalAnglican]

24:00 - Things like Churches, Community groups & Common values that are essential for a functioning democracy would also be a essential for a functioning colony!

[@toddtelford6418]

please can the society please give the camera operator a tripod!...or show him or her how to use it lol

[@marashdemnika5833]

Hello

[@davidskybrody]

He said "swindle."

[@EnneaIsInterested]

But land was a valuable resource long before agriculture, since we have really old examples of proto-agriculture by now. If 'full-spectrum food webs' are what they seem like, people essentially boiling and harvesting everything inside a given region and being largely sedentary, then the history of using land precedes agriculture by tens of thousands of years.

[@replica1052]

(life as center of the universe - to surrect planets is how to live in a universe ) melt large amounts of ice with reflectors, water a absorbs dust and radiation as heat, boiloff be greenhouse insulation and atmospheric pressure - once it rains fish can survive mars nature (ice as building material be self sealng and give vast structure in no time )

[@replica1052]

give eveyone 9m diameter luxury apartments, build river-like lakes for indoor walks, seafood and o2 algae - waterlocks as airlocks make living easy (earth surface is mostly water so should a mars habitat )

[@JustinHubertus]

comment for the algorythm

[@tonyevans9999]

Today's best comedy skit, bit long tho.

[@TonyStone3000]

Earth is a much nicer place

[@robinstevenson6690]

I strongly oppose human exploration/development on Mars. Every penny that is spent on Mars reduces the amount spent to improve life on spaceship earth.

[@chrimony]

He seems rather dismissive about not need a magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere after terraforming. He uses Venus as an example, which has a higher gravity, but also no water vapor. Also ignores that Mars once had running water on it's surface. Terraforming Mars into a livable atmosphere and then letting it blow out into space would be a world-ending tragedy.

[@harrykerr7547]

Solar wind stripping away atmosphere is a process that takes thousands of years.

[@chrimony]

@@harrykerr7547 Yes, but why would you go through the effort to *terraform a planet* only to let it waste away over a period of thousands of years?

[@mawkernewek]

@@chrimony though humanity never let long-term sustainability get in our way before

[@chrimony]

@@mawkernewek Planetcide after giving it birth would be taking things to a new level.

[@mawkernewek]

@@chrimony don't worry, in a few thousands of years, we'll just mine the Kuiper Belt, they'll think of something

[@ThompPL1]

2:48 . . . A good paraphrase ? : " SpaceX is now a Superpower on par with the national space agencies of the World ! "

[@NQISSteve]

What a shame you had your dog film it.............................

[@tepidtuna7450]

So off putting.

[@justbecauseOK]

good luck on Mars with this guy

[@mawkernewek]

19:00 take 19th century gender roles to Mars with us?

[@ifl1476]

Gender roles have existed since human evolution it's part of sexual mating selection.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

That "natural resources" didn't exist means just a word play. Parts of the world use to be settled when an exploitation of them becomes possible because technology has altogether proceeded, accordingly; that's a stronger law than that you'll obtain some inventions when people settle a new region. The European immigrants of 18th-century North America have indeed be innovative - just think of Oliver Evans and his automobile. But North America then has wildly differed from what you have to expect on Mars inasmuch as the country largely lay there empty, waiting to be settled on a level of technology like it had already been achieved in Europe. Its native inhabitants had vanished because they had lacked immunity against Old-World pathogens. Under such circumstances, not only penniless Europeans but in particular also adventurers and idealists from the Old World have created an especially vibrant community. The USA may also have profited from a strong natural selection that has happened on the ships with which the immigrants have arrived. On these ships, the mortality has often reached similarly high values like on the ships with the slaves. The big hub of technological and scientific innovation of the 18th century clearly still has been Europe. Inventing requires education, experience, wealth, time, space, in particular also good food. A poorly nourished brain does not work well. Thus, you typically obtain a boom of technological progress only in regions which before have already undergone quite a long phase of preparation. Such regions often appear as historically new centers _in a longer-term hindsight._ Germany, for example, has already begun to arise as a new power when its armies have thrown back Napoleon, in the early 19th century, but still in the late 19th century, its products have been just as poor, compared with the ones of other nations, as the products of Russia have been it a few decades ago and certainly often still are it now. I.e., one can indeed expect a phase in the closer future of Mars during which Mars will become a major exporter of leading technology, but hardly still within the current century. Until then, Mars will rather resemble the Soviet Union than early America. The planet will hardly become popular among geniuses who can afford a better life on Earth, until then. It will painfully endeavor after a local production of as much as possible, just like the Soviet Union has done it, while suffering from a big artificiality of everything economic. That it should become able to export food in bigger quantities any time soon must appear as a joke. As a credible notion can appear a future of Mars in the role of a pacemaker of spaceflight, but also concerning this there will exist competition. Luna, for example, has an even weaker gravity and can much more quickly be supplied with machine parts from Earth. The scenarios on habitats shown from 20:16 are deceptive. They suggest a much bigger abundance of sunlight as arriving on Mars than it really arrives there.

[@PlanXV]

To colonise mars you need a lot of horse manure or people poop 💩

[@brycedyck8450]

He is a fool. Nobody will ever successfully live on Mars, because it is just not possible. Getting there is not even 1% of the battle. Once there, it is just a question of whether Mars kills them, or they go nuts and kill each other😂

[@kordelas2514]

The guy is delusional or he tries to bamboozle the masses.

[@mattmurdoch5575]

Unfortunately, the United States is not going to be the only settling country. China; Russia; India as well as Europeans will want to make settlements on Mars where essentially, separate cultures and reflections of the country of origin will also be exported. Initially, there will of course be cooperation which might Lead to some form of shared goal setting a little bit like the original cooperation in the space race that has now fallen away. I very much hope the human race successfully colonises at least our solar system but it will be done through competitive forces as was the case withthe the United States. Once you have different cultural powers acting in the same environment, you will have the foundations for war, Note, I am referring to cultures and not skin colour which the United States seems to be pre-occupied with as evidence of diversity. Settlers will initially be friends but as civilisation becomes more secure, there will be battles for resources. Of course, this might not be militaristic but more like cyber or economic sanctions. A key difference will be that artificial intelligence and robots / androids will be available where humans will not necessarily be required. Communication means that options such as 3-D printing using Martian resources will be available where again humans will not be required other than to make a territorial claim. Even now, with all of the knowledge and economic resources that are available, we are still killing other human beings for territory and political power reasons. "Twas always thus and always thus will be" At the moment, we are moving to a closed future and not the Star Trek future. Economic powers such as the world economic forum with support of global governance are literally moving to remove our liberty to be controlled by relatively few people in power. For example, the world health organisation treaty Wants to introduce a global digital health wallet where we will be tracked alongside any digital currencies government will introduce that will steal our personal wealth and how we choose to use it. iThe future being built today is one of oppression and tyranny and less freedom. This includes less intellectual freedom as you will be aware of in restricting the rights of a student in university to think and speak freely. I vote for a Star Trek future...

[@rorykeegan1895]

"Unfortunately, the United States is not going to be the only settling country" That's a relief. Who wants Mars run by bonkers, fanatically religious, gun toting Americans? Nobody sane.

[@dougspace6734]

Excellent presentation. I believe that language will be a primary factor determining which groups will choose to become independent. Speaking of which, there wasn't mention of the Outer Space Treaty. Groups on Mars who declare their independence won't bell sign up and hence won't be bound by it.

[@steadtlera950]

Outer space treaty has largely been replace by the Artemis Accords. But at any rate, there is no law without enforcement.

[@dougspace6734]

@@steadtlera950- The Artemis Accords says that they are consistent with the OST. The OST prevents signers from declaring sovereign territory. So one has to leave even the Artemis Accords in order to declare one's settlement a sovereign, self-governing entity.