A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? (Unabridged)
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4.2 • 24 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
* THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Scientific American’s #1 Book for 2023
* A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A Times Best Science and Environment Book of 2023 *
“Helpfully pulls back the curtain on some of the lesser-discussed challenges to humanity’s off-Earth pursuits . . . Any reader enthusiastic about space settlement will find much to appreciate in this book . . . [The Weinersmiths] write with a confident belief that humanity will one day travel off-planet.” –Science
From the bestselling authors of Soonish, a brilliant and hilarious off-world investigation into space settlement
Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it? Critically acclaimed, bestselling authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered:
Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism?
With deep expertise and a winning sense of humor, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.
Get in, we’re going to Mars.
Customer Reviews
A Brilliant, Unsparing Look at Life Beyond Earth
A strong thesis upfront unfolds into a wondrous story of human nature and space exploration, covering all the intimate details a passionate reader desires. *A City on Mars* by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith is one of those rare books that manages to be deeply entertaining while also being relentlessly rigorous. It never settles for the easy romance of rockets, colonies, and bold declarations about humanity’s future in space. Instead, it asks the harder, better questions: how do people actually live off Earth, what breaks first, what are we overlooking, and what fantasies collapse the moment they encounter biology, physics, logistics, or law?
What makes this book so impressive is its thoroughness. The argument is not built out of abstraction or hype, but from the ground up—from dust and radiation to waste systems, reproduction, menstruation, infrastructure, isolation, governance, and international law. It is willing to linger on the unglamorous realities, including tampons, toilets, bodily fragility, and the strange legal ambiguities of who owns what, who answers to whom, and what “society” even means when transplanted beyond Earth. That attention to detail is exactly what gives the book its force. It treats space settlement not as a slogan, but as a total human problem.
The result is not anti-space. Quite the opposite. It is pro-reality, pro-curiosity, and pro-humanity. The Weinersmiths clearly love the subject enough to interrogate it honestly, and that honesty makes the book feel bigger, stranger, and more exciting than a simple celebration ever could. They reveal that the dream of living on Mars is not diminished by complexity; it is made more profound by it. A 5 out of 5 for me—smart, funny, humane, and astonishingly complete.