Review of 'A City on Mars'

A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith, and Zach Weinersmith

You could be forgiven for believing this book to be a typical “let's go to Mars” exciting and enthusiastic narrative but if you look at the subtitle “Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through” you realize that this is a very different take. The married authors Zach and Kelly Weinersmith do not have any technical background in space exploration so when coming up with this subject they took it upon themselves to take a year to investigate the reality of man exploring and settling space, with sources throughout the scientific and commercial communities. The result is a well researched and realistic discussion of the issues that face this goal. They freely admit that they want this as well but they are able to cut to the chase and tell us of the problems that must be faced that have not been well researched or thought through such issues such as their particular bug-bear legality (who owns space, who owns the moon, what happens if someone sets up a station on the moon without regard to existing legal frameworks…etc), sexual (is it safe to have sex in lower gravity environments, can babies be born and grow in such environments without any consequences, etc), physical (what are the long-term effects to exposure in space environments including high radiation and low gravity, etc) and technology (do we really have what is needed to settle space, etc). The chapters go through each of these items one at a time to lay bear the issues related to each of them and the risks of ignoring them. The result is a refreshingly realistic view of what needs to be done in order for mankind to settle the solar system and beyond.

Many people will find this book a disappointingly negative view on the settlement of space but the concerns raised are very real and without addressing them we will never be able to move beyond earth. In the end, the general feeling is that we need to take our time to figure out what we really hope to achieve with our venturing beyond this planet and work through the related issues rather than rushing headlong into disaster.

As Zach is a cartoonist the book is full of amusing illustrations that bring the concepts being discussed alive and help make the book far more entertaining that it might have been. I found the book easy to read, very insightful, and very fair in it's assessment of space settlement as it backs all of this up with clearly expressed logic and meticulous research. The authors have really done their homework and beg the question as to why the rest of the key players in space settlement have seemingly not done the same? It seems that most are happier simply ignoring the basic issues or hand-waving them away, proceeding recklessly into things we really do not understand…Yes, it is fun and exciting, but do we really need to do all of this on the impossibly ridiculously short timeframes being suggested by the likes of NASA and Elon Musk?

Well worth reading by anyone who wants to understand the reality of space settlement and why it is not so simple as many make it out to be…

Rating: “I have absolutely no complaints”

Review Date: 2026-01-10

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Particular Books

Publication Date: 2023

ISBN: 9780241454930