? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Is it time to pack our bags and head for Mars? Many are looking to the stars for a fresh start, but Kelly and Zach Weinersmith don’t think we should give up on Earth just yet. A City on Mars is a funny, engaging, and gentle reality check for anyone ready to board the next rocket out.

The Weinersmiths devote most of the book to answering practical questions to colonizing Mars: They explain how an orbital colony can be built, why prime real estate on Mars is in barren lava tubes, and how living in company towns when management controls the workforce’s access to food, water, light, and air may not be the best situation.

The arguments for space colonization can be split into two categories: Doing it to escape extinction, and doing it because it’s cool that we can. The Weinersmiths admit they started this book with the intention of writing a “sociological road map” to off-world living in the near future. As they dived deeper into their research, the more they realized that space sucks, actually.

Oxygen isn’t the only thing we’d have to live without. The soil on Mars is full of toxic chemicals, and the thin atmosphere whips up planet-wide dust storms that take weeks to settle. And those are the good places. But in the face of extinction, we don’t have a choice. Right? Wrong.

Life on Earth is hard. But the solution, as shocking as it sounds, may not be relocating to a planet without food, water, or air. As planets go, the Weinersmiths argue, Earth is a pretty good one.

This book will make you grateful for this green and blue rock we live on, which is a good thing, because if their science is right, we won’t be leaving any time soon.

You can find the book on Amazon.

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