Robert Zubrin, Ph.D., Speaks to FAU Human Mission to Mars Class

Author and renowned space expert, Robert Zubrin, Ph.D., spoke to the inaugural FAU Human Mission to Mars class on Friday, November 15, 2019. He discusses his book “The Case for Mars” and takes questions from the students. Learn more about the FAU Human Mission to Mars class at fau.edu/mars.

[@melquannshabazz2224]

Great Visionary 💯💯

[@johnbroussard9480]

Excellent scientist and engineer. His reasoning faculties are extensive. He is handing off the Mars challenge baton to these 21st century young minds. I hope they remember how fortunate they are to have him as a teacher and mentor.

[@whirledpeas3477]

Zubrin is a great visionary! 👍

[@InquisitorMatthewAshcraft]

1:06:10 His name was Ira Hayes. RIP brother 😭

[@markschroter2640]

My personal opinion is that once you leave Earth's gravity well Earth's laws do not apply, (unless you return to Earth). If you occupy a place then you own it, insofar as you can defend it.

[@fuaatramli2323]

Nice presentation for so long zabirin dream human venture to mar since his school day know his has bujet from US.

[@cleanbla2003]

love this lecture, he speaks the truth

[@sakethcharan4915]

Great

[@OneCupOfCoffee204]

If you do a Google search for the guy who proposed a mission to Mars in the '70s It's almost as if this guy never lived.

[@vinny142]

That's because "If you do a Google search for the guy who proposed a mission to Mars in the '70s It's almost as if this guy never lived." That' because NASA was already working on it in the 60's. Even tpday zubrin is only known for being vocal about how important it is taht we go to mars, without ever giving a single argument that stands up to any scruteniy at all. The ultimate irony is that Zubrin, the man who claimed it was possible to colonise mars with 60's tech, is still skeptical about Musk's plans with 2020's technology. Zubrin is still ver mch pro-mars but it has takena along time for him to realise that his dream in the 70's was just him being an ignorant dreamer. Today he still dreams but he knows his dreams are very very difficuly to realise.

[@OneCupOfCoffee204]

@@vinny142 That' because NASA was already working on it in the 60's. Even tpday zubrin is only known for being vocal about how important it is taht we go to mars, without ever giving a single argument that stands up to any scruteniy at all. The ultimate irony is that Zubrin, the man who claimed it was possible to colonise mars with 60's tech, is still skeptical about Musk's plans with 2020's technology. Zubrin is still ver mch pro-mars but it has takena along time for him to realise that his dream in the 70's was just him being an ignorant dreamer. Today he still dreams but he knows his dreams are very very difficuly to realise. Bite me!

[@JFrazer4303]

40:18 I might bet that the speaker knows someone who's had a medical intervention or diagnosis based on technologies initially developed for humans in space. He's probably old enough to have experienced it. Basic research always pays off.

[@tobifoong8025]

Nice presentation .. good questions.. but nothing new.

[@trevorcox3669]

Sound is terrible

[@tomasneel1980]

Lmao

[@ezragonzalez8936]

Oh look its the angry troll!!

[@loadapish]

He should team up with elon musk

[@JFrazer4303]

40:00 asking what solid returns we've gotten from space or what we could get from exploring Mars. It's possible that industry and people experimenting could have gotten all of the things we've gained from having that happen, but like innovations from war, it's difficult to see it happening, or so rapidly, unless there's a distinct effort to innovate such things. Forget frivolous things like velcro or tang; our world is shaped by technologies based on things innovated for putting people into space and onto the moon. It's easy to show that it's more than returned the effort and expense put into it. Paid the economy back many times over. I like to point out that going to the Moon or doing things in space in general has never been a huge drain on money. During the entire timescale of Apollo, the US spent as much on cosmetics, and large States spent more on liquor. The bailouts of '08 were greater than the entire running grand total NASA expense. Including Apollo, all the planetary probes, the Shuttle and ISS. The bailouts in '20 were much more. Today our annual DoD budget is ~80% of that running total. Not counting "black" items or ongoing military operational expenses, which aren't openly voted on but are tacked on as riders in must-pass legislation. During the invasion of Iraq, we were spending $8 billion a month, and the NASA budget was $17 billion. Compared to NASA, we spend as much on each: Fast foods, illegal drugs, sports gambling, and lotteries. (from Dr. Zubrin) The reason we haven't seen big things being returned from space, or more tan part of the ISS, and no one back to the Moon or onto Mars, is solely a question of desire and political will. We - or some elected officials decided not to keep going after the cold-war propaganda game of the Moon landings. Mars Direct came out in ~98 They could have hammered a mission plan out if they'd wanted, with the Mars DRM derived from Mars Direct. We/They don't want to. (Oil wars are far more lucrative in our current conception of an economy, if not revolutionary disruptive profitable, compared to space.

[@Jimmy-B-]

I can’t see many people wanting to be stuck in that return vehicle for 8 months

[@DrMackSplackem]

Doesn't matter. We won't be sending your average idiot anyway, at least not on those first crafts. Study the pioneers of the past, that's who will begin the adventure.

[@Kasi01]

Just give em drugs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@nurkleblurker2482]

"on the surface you can shield yourself (from radiation)..." How? The surface of Mars has a great deal of solar and cosmic radiation. How will this be mediated for astronauts? He glosses over this but it's a huge problem.

[@lonniedobbins778]

He glosses over a lot to promote people going to mars. He made some great discoveries trying to do it. But people can't live on Mars. I doubt if survival is possible.

[@hernanposnansky4830]

Lonnie Actually survival on Mars is not that difficult, sure you will need pressurized habitats, but not at normal pressure, but at a pressure which corresponds to high mountains, the main difference is that the oxygen partial pressure is the same as on earth but with a lot less inert nitrogen : say 200 mbar oxygen , 160 mbar nitrogen , so the total pressure in your lightweight pressure suit is only pressurized to a third than what we are used to, and the same pressure in all large habitats, with some carbon dioxide for the plants inside. The very low temperatures outside are not a problem because the low density of the 'atmosphere' about 0.015 kg/m^3 reduces the heat capacity to about 1/120 of the cold air on earth, that means that in a tent outside you need only a small heater to bring up the temperature to normal levels. Of course you must wear your lightweight contact pressure suit, which has more than enough heat retention capabilities. The pressure suits we used on the Moon had to have significant cooling systems to reject the heat of the astronaut. If you get a chance to try one out, you will see what I mean. Due to the low gravity on Mars moving and working with large equipment is easy. You will not get 'winded' because you breathe much less volume of the low pressure air to get the same amount of oxygen . That you can try on the highest airport in Bolivia with a little supplemental oxygen available there, and once you are used to it, skiing at 14000 feet is very pleasant.

[@gagarinone]

@@hernanposnansky4830 Thansk for your informative answer!

[@ronarkom1611]

@@lonniedobbins778 you know, it is a one hour talk to a mostly layman audience.

[@slydesplaylists]

Gateway is essentially a good idea to have a permanent orbital dock , I thought Robert has always tried to simplify what has been achieved and has no another realistic as we know is necessary, rocket's as he does explain. I kind of like him though for how he has this skeptical powerless opinion and has similar fictional idea's until it's achieved. Guess he likes old webcams too, the Musk interview was equally as nothing really different to what they have already said previously. I would be far more expensive and a waste of time to consider something completely alternative. Well maybe as he said , civilisation might descend into savagery where space travel is impossible, many might still think it is and never could be done. It will be a known astrophysical observation that is proven to displace large amounts of mass at a primitive state of comfort for this state of out species and sure it will be large rockets for awhile. Perhaps field mechanics and fans of fiction know that high storage of energy required in composite arrangements of techtonic tech defeating abundance might be a near what is known as miracle but sure rockets ok just rocket science hey.

[@DrMackSplackem]

What!? Holy word salad!

[@antifusion]

@@DrMackSplackem bot

[@DrMackSplackem]

@@antifusion What?

[@matthewmason2211]

Jesus, Did you rail 1g of cocaine do the dome before you wrote this comment 😅

[@mwtrolle]

45:47 What a lot of American-centric BS. With most things, it's slow progress that slowly turns in to something, that makes it hard to say exactly when something was invented. But most of the things he mentioned were not invented in the US. Democracy: Ancient Greeks. Some of the tribes in France before the Romans invaded. Rome before Cesa., German tribes doing the roman times. Vikings. The Althing in Iceland. Frisia. Many of the Mediterranean, city-states. Cossack republics. Corsican Republic first modern democracy (1755) and more... So, no the US didn't give us democracy, bot even the modern form of democracy. Steamboats: Invented by the British and France. Electrical telegraph: The earliest text referring to the idea is from Scotland. While the development was dome by Britisk, France, German and Spanish scientists. The light bulb: Developed all over Europe, Thomas Edison perfected it made it viable as a light source and commercialized it. Centrally produces electric power. Belgium and UK. What Edison did first was to make the world's first coal-fired power station, generating electricity for public use. Motion pictures: Finally he got one right, though again it depends on when we call something a motion picture. Anyway, Eadweard Muybridge was born in the UK. Also many others were working on it in Europa, so to say we would not have it if not for the US are BS, maybe it have taken a few years. Arrorplanes: Nope. He should have said first controlled powered flight, as there were gliders before that. The right Wright brothers flight were in 1903 and it was the first controlled powered flight, but there were people really close after them all over Europe, so it had only been a short delay. Nuclear power: Yes, it was made in the US first, but it concept was made in Europe, and many if not most of the scientists making the bomb and the powerplant were European. Computers: Mechanical computer in Greece BC, Mechanical programmable computer in UK, first electric computer in UK. The US did make the first electromechanical analog computer as fire-control systems to their navy. The first automatic electronic digital computer again the US, But the first. But the world's first electronic digital programmable computer war again UK, and Alan Turing that made the theory behind the modern computer was again British. The internet: I'll give him that one.

[@ifl1476]

Who cares about demoracy that is embarrasing why would anyone want to claim it?

[@jshepard152]

You lost me on item one. The Greeks invented a form of democracy that didn't work, and so the whole idea was considered discredited for two thousand years. The writers of the US Constitution invented modern democracy, which is actually republican government. That does work, and that's the only reason anyone gives a damn about democracy today.

[@jackthompson6192]

It would probably be worse than camping out in a cold dry desert with no air to breathe ..

[@brobrah4595]

yea no shit, its another planet.

[@charlessmyth]

When the environmental catastrophe of the Salton Sea is too big to handle, and so few can be bothered to inhabit California City, Mojave, that is less than 100-miles from downtown LA, Mars is a total nonsense.

[@markschroter2640]

Nothing is stopping you from fixing that problem.

[@matthewmason2211]

Maybe we shouldn’t have allocated more water to agriculture than can be replaced through natural processes, and probably would have been a good idea to factor in climate trending variables that was well understood is cyclical not a linear constant…. And why the hell artificially produce farming in the desert by stealing water from somewhere else and think it would be sustainable? California just got a shit ton of water in those atmospheric rivers. Figure out how to redirect flood waters into irragation reserves that can be used in the future when need be & Leave the Colorado river alone and problems solved