To Fade in All

In "The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization", Zubrin provides some logical underpinning for the proposition that his project is doable. Here, he outlines four phases of Mars colonization and discusses life support, interplanetary commerce, population dynamics, the selling of Martian real estate and historical analogies.

Author Sylvia Engdahl's 1971 novel The Far Side of Evil is based on the concept of a "critical stage", during which a species has the capability to break out into space or to destroy itself. It will do one or the other, but not both. Engdahl believes we are passing through such a watershed period now, and in "My Views on the Importance of Space", she expresses her fear that we are leaning the wrong way.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania offers a first year/sophomore exploratory design unit called "Space Colonies". In it, students are required to consider the design of a colony with an independent biosphere like the Biosphere II project in Oracle, near Tucson, Arizona.

"Humanity must expand its range if it is to continue to flourish," says roboticist Dr. Han Fastolfe in Isaac Asimov's novel The Robots of Dawn. "One method of expansion is through space, through a constant pioneering reach toward other worlds ... Of course, we might substitute other expansions -- an expansion of scientific understanding or cultural vigor, for instance. I fear, however, that these expansions are not separable. To fade in one is to fade in all."

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