“A City on Mars”

Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

The Weinersmiths once again knock it out of the park; they’re truly some of the best pop-science writers out there.

A City on Mars is an overview of, basically, the entire concept of “can and should we be trying to colonize Mars?” And, unlike the many, many blog posts out there where people say “yes!” and then excitedly talk about the Sabatier reaction, they spend a lot more time talking about the very real challenges. And, yes, a lot of that is the scientific — rockets are big, expensive, complicated machines! Biology is weird and we have literally no idea what happens to people if they spend as much time in microgravity as would be necessary to get to Mars, much less the amount of time they’d spend living in the lower-gravity environment of Mars (or the moon).1 But what this book touches on that I think a lot of other media on the subject ignores is the law. Like, we know Elon likes to hand-wave away regulation, and every libertarian fantasizes about living in space where there’s no government, but that’s… not actually how it works?2 Like, if you get filmed committing a murder in international waters, it’s still a murder, and you can and will be prosecuted for it, there’ll just be an awkward phase at the beginning of the trial where your lawyer argues with the prosecution about which specific jurisdiction you’re going to be tried in.

Overall, quite an interesting read; you’ll learn a lot more about international law than you probably know, and it’s a fun book all the way through. Well worth it. Check it out!3

Like, maybe after two consecutive years of living in microgravity, you start aging backwards? It’s not likely, but nobody has checked. More realistically are the questions like “the thing where being in space screws up your eyes, does that keep getting worse over time? Does anything go wrong in your brain if it’s not getting pulled into shape by gravity? Can people even get pregnant in space?” Again, things that nobody has gotten around to testing. Oftentimes for good reason, but still. ↩

Note: I’m writing this in early January of 2025. Elon may yet become god-emperor, in which case, my argument here is partially moot. ↩