A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? (Hardback)

Scientific, educational, and fun as hell Can a book be hilarious, deeply-researched, utterly original and wise all at the same time? If it's by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, of course it can. This is a sensational book; whether you read it in your snuggle tunnel or your pregnodrome, read it A refreshing, clear-headed breath of life-support oxygen amidst all the tech-bro naivety and hype on space colonisation. Impeccably researched and argued, yet witty and very easy to read. Superb! Listen up, humans. How to poop in space will be the least of our concerns. Herein are challenges most space-heads, including me, never even considered: not just technological, but legal, ethical, geopolitical. Despite the breadth and depth of research, this is a clear, lively, and hilarious read. Slam dunk, Weinersmiths! There's a tendency to have a rather ethereal and even utopian view of space settlement. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith bring us a highly entertaining and down to Earth (or should one say down to Mars?) view of our future in space, filled with humour and cogent insights An exceptional new piece of popular science . . . Forceful, engaging and funny… an essential reality check for anyone who has ever looked for home in the night sky . . . hilarious. The breezy prose is studded with charming cartoons . . . This book will make you happy to live on this planet—a good thing, because you’re not leaving anytime soon If humanity's future looks to be in doubt, is living off-world not the ultimate insurance policy for our species? A City on Mars... answers this question very bluntly: don't pin your hopes on it... All this makes the book sound a much grimmer read than it is. It is peppered with cartoons and jokey-back references, and between each section are interludes tackling some enjoyable anecdotes from space This might be the best book ever written about humans in space, or at least the funniest. I don't know of anything else quite like it: an extended, comical confrontation between the dreams of space colonies and the gross, dangerous, tedious realities. Read it before you go A very funny book, underpinned by deadly serious questions about the future of humanity Of the many books and extensive literature on Space mission architectures, technical and otherwise, this is the only one that is a must-read An excellent new book, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s A City on Mars, sets out persuasively and amusingly why you would have to be wildly optimistic or crushingly stupid to want to set up a space settlement any time soon. Laugh-out-loud-funny An engaging new book… A City on Mars is a breezy read about human space settlement, blending together subjects like history, psychology, law and, of course, the sciences, into an honest yet hilarious summary of the field… despite the sobering outlook on humanity’s future beyond Earth, delightful cartoons sprinkled throughout the book are sure to pull chuckles out of you Inventive, funny, and informative . . . Filled with fun illustrations that bring the writing to life, this accessible and thought-provoking book explores what it will really take to build a society on another planet Full of some of the choice-iest bits of awkward human space exploration histories and theories . . . could have been the research notes for an Ursula K. Le Guin, or a James S. A. Corey story, except that it’s filled with jokes, palette cleansing anecdotes and charming cartoon illustrations . . . a popular science book that reads like a conversation with a friend . . . you can’t get away from this book without thinking about how precious life on Earth is