Martian Cities Will be Foot Cities: Robert Zubrin

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Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human space exploration, particularly for the colonization of Mars. He is best known for his passionate promotion of Mars exploration and his contributions to space advocacy through his books and the Mars Society, which he founded in 1998.

Zubrin first gained widespread attention with his 1996 book The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must. In this book, he laid out detailed technical and economic arguments for how humanity could establish a permanent human presence on Mars with current technology. His proposed plan, known as "Mars Direct," focuses on sending astronauts directly to Mars and using in-situ resources (i.e., converting Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide into fuel) to reduce mission costs and complexity. He has argued that such a mission could be done affordably compared to other, more complex NASA proposals.

Zubrin's work often centers on the idea that space exploration is key to the survival and advancement of humanity. He believes that establishing colonies beyond Earth will not only safeguard human civilization in case of planetary catastrophe but also inspire technological progress and a spirit of exploration.

Beyond Mars, Zubrin has written on a variety of topics related to energy, politics, and space policy. His other notable books include Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization and Merchants of Despair, in which he critiques environmentalist positions that he argues are overly pessimistic and anti-human. He is also a critic of overly bureaucratic approaches to space exploration, advocating for more entrepreneurial and private-sector involvement.

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I'll always be in favour of the pendulum for urban planning and architecture to go back to their traditional and human-centric roots. In the future, people will look back on all the failed attempts of "reinventing the wheel" with regards to how urban spaces are created, from living in a skyscraper, a giant pyramid, a giant line, or even centring everything around automobiles. So it is reassuring to to predict that "foot cities" are just inherently more attractive for human habitation.

vianabdullah
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I don't know what a foot-city is supposed to be. Humans have been transporting goods on carts for 4000 years and before that we were using animals. Does Zubin somehow think that people will be digging tunnels on Mars using shovels? And how will they move all that soil? With buckets? Dude... this is idiotic. I was once in a remote village in the arctic. They didn't have a single bicycle but they had dozens of cars and three excavators. The only places one could reach on foot were places where one would have died from exposure.

lepidoptera
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Just stop with the mars bs. We aren’t settling mars. Do some real research.

Calidastas
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Very good sense of humour, sir. What? You are serious?

SuperHyperExtra
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We evolved to be in synch with our planet, its gravity, day cycle, seasons etc. we can’t live on another planet.

jammintoast