Robert Zubrin: "The Case for Mars"

Robert Zubrin

Document Type

Metadata Only

Date

1-20-2000

Venue

Mills Godwin, Jr. Building - Auditorium

Lecture Series

President's Lecture Series

Description

In "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, Robert Zubrin explains step-by-step how we can use present-day technology to send humans to Mars within 10 years; produce fuel and oxygen on the planet's surface with Martian natural resources; build bases and settlements on the planet; and alter the planet's atmosphere to pave the way for sustainable life.

One of the world's foremost proponents of the colonization of Mars, Zubrin is a member of NASA's Mars Exploration Long Term Strategy Working Group. "Mars has what it takes" to support colonization, he said in a recent article on the NASA Web site.

The planet may appear to be an uninhabitable desert, but beneath its sands are oceans of water in the form of permafrost, Zubrin said. Enough so that if it was melted and Mars' terrain was smoothed out, it would cover the entire planet with an ocean several hundred meters deep, he claims.

Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, which provides enormous supplies of the two most important biological elements carbon and oxygen -- which can be directly taken up and incorporated into plant life.

Zubrin is a former senior engineer with Lockheed Martin and the founder of Pioneer Astronautics, a space exploration and development firm. He also chaired the first international conference of The Mars Society, an organization dedicated to the concept of manned missions and settlement of Mars, in August 1998.

Media Type

VHS

Comments

A 1/2" VHS copy of this lecture is available in the Special Collections & University Archives Department of Old Dominion University Perry Library. Call #: LD4331.A57 2000

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