How We'll Live on Mars

By: Stephen Petranek

Narrated by: Stephen Petranek

Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's Summary

Award-winning journalist Stephen Petranek says humans will live on Mars by 2027. Now he makes the case that living on Mars is not just plausible, but inevitable.

It sounds like science fiction, but Stephen Petranek considers it fact: Within 20 years, humans will live on Mars. We'll need to. In this sweeping, provocative book that mixes business, science, and human reporting, Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity and explains in fascinating detail just how it will happen.

The race is on. Private companies, driven by iconoclastic entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Sir Richard Branson; Dutch reality show and space mission Mars One; NASA; and the Chinese government are among the many groups competing to plant the first stake on Mars and open the door for human habitation. Why go to Mars? Life on Mars has potential life-saving possibilities for everyone on Earth. Depleting water supplies, overwhelming climate change, and a host of other disasters - from terrorist attacks to meteor strikes - all loom large. We must become a space-faring species to survive. We have the technology not only to get humans to Mars, but to convert Mars into another habitable planet. It will likely take 300 years to "terraform" Mars, as the jargon goes, but we can turn it into a veritable second Garden of Eden. And we can live there, in specially designed habitations, within the next 20 years.

In this exciting chronicle, Petranek introduces the circus of lively characters all engaged in a dramatic effort to be the first to settle the Red Planet. How We'll Live on Mars brings firsthand reporting, interviews with key participants, and extensive research to bear on the question of how we can expect to see life on Mars within the next 20 years.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2015 Stephen Petranek. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Watch Mars on NatGeo

The series was based on the book. The tv show is better, but I like the depth of explanations that the author goes into.

short and informative

Great little book about space travel to Mars in the hopes of making the planet habitable. In this book, which can be read in about an hour on accelerated speed, the author briefly examines the following:

What has stood in our way of going to Mars?
Could we have been there already?
What are the implications of key decisions NASA made?
Did we use our budget wisely?
How have politics affected the space budget?
What can we do with such a limited budget?
What explorers have we already sent to the moon, space station, and Mars?
What are our plans to send explorers in the future?
Can we live on Mars?
What are the challenges and what will it take to overcome them?

And of course no book on traveling to Mars would be complete without providing at least some information on Elon Musk and Musk technology. The author provides a very short section on Musk and what his efforts mean for society and the future of space travel.

Excellent.

What did you like best about this story?

This book was very interesting, I couldn't stop listening. There are a lot of very interesting ideas and proposals, would definitely recommend!

needs an update in tech advances

needs to be updated it's 2018 now! Tech has improved vastly. A.I. NVIDIA, Tesla Solar and battery, Falcon Heavy launch with reusable rockets, 3D printed houses, update this please!

Beyond

The book allowed me to flow between science fiction and detailed scientific studies. If the future can be written by science but lead by our imagination, then this book is the guide to a Red Colony.

I liked it

The information provided was and is extremely important and accurate to how we will reach the other planets that we can survive on

Short But Good

Short, wish there was more, but comprehensive and insightful. It's an overview with broad sweeping strokes, but with enough detail too believe that it is possible.

So much info and inspiration

A packed and inspiring information regarding space and our ability to settle in space, like taking all science fiction books and making them real almost here and now, through the narrator’s soothing voice and the book’s scientific and simplified language, surprisingly I suspended all of my concerns of this futuristic vision

Mars coolest place

super duper book and storyline. sways the finest quality structure this is very difficult to express my deepest sorrow for the best part about being in the future of this message

Cant wait till we are there!

I am an Aresophile, and I still learned quite a bit. I would have liked more content, but it would have probably mired the book down. Highly recommended!

another master piece by Stephen Petranek

with the Mars colonisations expected in 2025 the belief that the "humans are too expensive & fragile for space" is finally broken!

made me dream for weeks

brilliant analysis of Mars. great analogy to ehqt happened in the past and a pretty optimiticnvie2 of how humans will overcome challenges there !

So short

I suggest for more detail read trilogies Mars red mars green and mars blue, it gets me deep into life on mars