Dr. Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, discusses future technology on the red planet and what our lives in space could look like

Dr. Robert Zubrin, the founder of the Mars Society, has spent decades advocating for human exploration on Mars, arguing that the red planet would provide bountiful benefits to us.

The aerospace engineer has written several books on the subject and given countless speeches, making his case.

In recent years, interest in Martian colonies has grown, and it’s looking more and more likely that humans will be making the move in the next few decades.

Dr. Robert Zubrin spoke to Supercar Blondie about what technology he thinks will thrive on Mars, and estimated when he thinks we’ll be moving to our second planet.

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When does Dr. Robert Zubrin think humans will get to Mars?

It’d be hard to find a person who argued more passionately for Mars colonization than Dr. Robert Zubrin.

In 1998, he founded the Mars Society, which has kept up public interest in human colonization on the Red Planet.

The work of the Mars Society has been credited with encouraging the US Government not to cut funding for Mars rover missions.

In addition to his work through the Mars Society, Dr. Zubrin has written countless books on the subject – The Case for Mars, On to Mars, and How to Live on Mars, just to name a few.

His most recent book, The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet, comes at a particularly pivotal time.

After all, interest in the colonization of Mars has never been more palpable, with governments and private companies alike vying for the opportunity to be the first there.

But this has been a topic of interest for decades now – when does Dr. Zubrin think we’ll be setting foot on Mars?

“The first human mission to Mars, I believe, could happen in about 10 years,” Dr. Zubrin told Supercar Blondie.

“[That could happen even] faster if Musk was to refocus on SpaceX and not on his other activities.

“I believe we can have a permanent human base on Mars within 10 years after that.”

Dr. Zubrin believes that used launch vehicles will make the prospect of going to Mars more affordable in years to come.

“[Elon] Musk told me on one occasion that, he could make the Starship – that is the upper stage, the part that would actually travel to Mars – for $10,000,000.

“Which means that either he or one of his copycats, would probably be willing to sell it for $20,000,000,” Dr. Zubrin said.

“And then that means that eventually such things will be available used for $2,000,000.

“Well, $2,000,000 [paid for] by 100 people is $20,000 per person, which is quite expensive for an airplane ticket, but it’s not a forbidding number for someone who wants to move to a new world.”

What will the new colonies on the Red Planet look like?

Mars has been touted as a second home for several reasons – oceans of water in glaciers and ice sheets, and vast quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, along with very small amounts of oxygen.

But what will life look like for our descendants who settle down and become the first Martians?

In The New World on Mars, Dr. Zubrin makes the case that the population there will be inventive and resourceful.

He envisioned a society ‘that puts the utmost premium on intelligence, practical education, and the determination required to make real contributions’.

“You’re gonna have on Mars a technologically adept population, in a frontier environment, which absolutely challenges them to innovate,” Dr. Zubrin said.

“This is colonial 19th-century America to the nth power.

“And so you’re gonna have a society of tinkerers and inventors, and they will be addressing all sorts of problems.

“They will be working on ultra-productive bioengineered crops because they need to grow food in greenhouses, which sharply restricts the acreage available.

“They will want to really make fusion power practical, because Mars doesn’t have fossil fuels.

“And they, I believe, will make very significant advances in applied artificial intelligence, because Mars is gonna have a severe labor shortage.”

When we think of the future, we often imagine robots will play a part, right?

We only have to look at the 1X NEO robot to see what that future could potentially look like.

“I don’t really think the things we [currently] have on Mars are robots. I think we have highly automated exploration tools,” Dr. Zubrin said.

“But clearly robotics is coming along, and it’s going to be a big thing both on Mars and on Earth.

“I think the Martians will certainly be doing things in that area.

“To build a robot with all its complex electronics and everything requires a global division of labor, actually, to make all the products that actually go into a robot.

“On Mars, we’ll only build all the components that are massive, and the tiny little sophisticated parts will need to come from Earth.”

Time and time again in his book, Dr Zubrin argued that robots will be an inevitable part of Martian life due to initial labor shortages.

He envisioned that they would ‘nearly all the hard and risky work […] in the potentially lethal Martian outdoors’.

Throughout a lot of his work, there’s a sense of innovation and positivity, whether he’s writing about Martian colonies or nuclear power.

It’s no wonder that author Marian Tupy described him as ‘one of the high priests of American techno-optimism’.

Is that an easy thing to be in a time when a lot of new technology is viewed with suspicion and fear?

“In 1932, not that long ago, Franklin Roosevelt ran for President on a slogan of a chicken in every pot. That is, vote for me and you will be able to buy chicken,” Dr. Zubrin said.

“Now I was just at the supermarket, and you could buy chicken for $2 a pound. In the United States, minimum wage is $7 an hour.

“[That’s possible] because of advance of technology.

“The advance of technology is the primary thing that has transformed human existence in a positive way.”

To learn more about the work that Dr. Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society do, visit the organization’s website or follow Dr. Robert Zubrin on X.

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