The Nutcase for Mars: My review at Amazon.com (was Zubrin's stacked arguments)

Great review. I suggest we all click on the review at Amazon.com and
show readers that it was very helpful. I did.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:
> From: "johnf4303"
> To:
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 3:48 AM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Zubrin's stacked arguments
>
> [snikt]
> > Question: has anybody published a good rebuttal to Z on this
topic? I
> > assume that nobody within the AIAA or SSI considers his
rantings to
> > be worthy of rebuttal. Any mention of this debate in the "Ad
Astra"
> > 'zine?
> > Mike Combs' treatment of it is pretty much authoritative on
the 'net.
> > Let's all do a favor: Try to take a die-hard Zubrinite stance
> > against Mike's page. Throw everything we can think of against it.
> > Then submit it to their "New Mars" E-Zine after we're certain
we've
> > nailed it shut...
> [snikt]
>
> Well, having bought "The Case for Mars" a while ago, the minimum
that I
> could throw against it was the review below, that I have just
posted to
> Amazon.com:
>
> "The first half of "The Case for Mars" convincingly describes an
> economically viable, technically sound and scientifically relevant
plan for
> a manned mission to Mars. Period.
>
> Unfortunately, there is also the other half of the book... In that
part,
> Zubrin tries to proof why Mars is so much better than other venues
> (free-floating space settlements, lunar and asteroid colonies,
etc) for
> space exploration and colonization. Nothing wrong with that, but
the problem
> is that Zubrin is intellectually dishonest when building his
arguments. They
> are clearly aimed at "converting" the uninformed general public,
even though
> the price for that is keeping that public misinformed - and
thrashing the
> scientifically sound work of other space researchers in the way.
In that
> sense, Zubrin's arguments are much like those of pseudoscientific
groups,
> like Creationists, for instance.
>
> And, of course, there is the last part of the book, when Zubrin
tries to
> justify Mars colonization in economical terms. Well, that part is
so
> outlandish that I would classify it as science fiction. (And
perhaps not
> even *hard* science fiction.) There *are* books with compelling
arguments
> about economically profitable exploration of the space (e.g., "The
High
> Frontier" and "Mining the Sky"), but certainly "The Case for Mars"
is not
> one of them."
>
> By the way, I would like to thank my listmates for giving me
inspiration for
> writing that. Even though it will not make much difference among
the
> zillions of reviews saying things like "'The Case for Mars'
changed my life,