Zach Weinersmith

Review: A City on Mars

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Cover image of " A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

A City on Mars

A City on Mars, Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9781984881748) 2023.

Summary: A study of the complexities of human settlements in space, and whether this is as good an idea as some think.

With the recent Artemis mission, human space missions once again captured the public imagination. It put us on notice that there are well-funded entities with ambitions to settle on the Moon, and eventually Mars or elsewhere. Some have spoken of this as an alternative if climate conditions become unbearable on earth or as an “ark” to preserve human and other life if the unthinkable were to happen on earth.

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, a scientist and a cartoonist respectively, are self-admitted space geeks. But as they have taken a hard look at the complexities of space settlement, they argue very good case for at least going slow if we do this at all. At best, they argue for this being a project of centuries–a wait-and-go-big approach. To begin, they puncture a variety of myths about how space settlement could save humanity, make us all rich, end war, and will unify us and make us wise.

Then they take a deep dive into the complexities of creating sustainable space settlements. Firstly, consider survival. Space has all kinds of ways to kill humans, both fast and slow. Fundamentally, there is the question of air, and the reality that the lack of it, even for seconds can kill. There are also a variety of longer term killers from bone and muscle loss to radiation exposure from which our atmosphere protects us. And while sex in space is possible, we do not know the effects of low or no gravity environments on human development. Likewise, what would long-term residence in a low gravity environment would mean for returning to Earth?

Secondly, comes the question of where. The Weinersmiths consider the possibilities. The Moon is close but comes with challenges. Only a few mountaintops at the poles are always in sunlight. The soil is abrasive, just to mention the most obvious problems. Mars is little better, with toxic, perchlorate soils and challenging atmospheric conditions. Then there are giant space stations, wheels in the sky. However, the size to create gravity approximating earth presents construction challenges. All the other options are far worse.

Thirdly, creating self-contained settlements has its own challenges. Biosphere Two barely pulled this off on earth. But the most likely settlements on the Moon or Mars would be underground, in lava tubes. These protect from unlivable temperatures, toxins, and radiation. But the challenge is that they have to be self-sustaining for long periods, from oxygen generation to food and energy production. We don’t know how to do this yet.

Fourthly, is the state of and challenges of space law. The Weinersmiths discuss the existing Outer Space Treaty, that has both worked but leaves many questions unanswered. When you are talking brief, exploratory missions and a few samples, there are few problems. However, can a “commons” approach work when there are multiple entities with settlements?

Finally, the Weinersmiths consider what is involved in “going big.” They envision that settlements would be the equivalent of the company town. And how many people are needed for a self-sustaining civilization? The estimates vary widely from under ten thousand to a million or more people. Of course, that begs the question of how we will get them there. And, because human nature doesn’t change, the Weinersmiths explore everything from crime to space war.

The Weinersmiths break up all this serious science and technology talk with comics, down to earth descriptions, like the Moon as a “fixer-upper” and humorous sidenotes like the tale of the tampon bandolier for early female astronauts and why astronauts love taco sauce. Don’t skip over the Nota Bene at the end of each section.

The upshot of all this is that we better not rely on space settlement as a Plan B for the human race. At one point, they note that the best space alternatives are still objectively worst than even extreme climate change conditions. And none are near-term. We are far wiser to focus on the only place we know we can live. However, they do not close the door to space settlement. Rather, to do it well and ethically, there is a lot of groundwork to lay that will take far more than 20-25 years as some would propose. The Weinersmiths suggest centuries, although our ADHD society probably can’t tolerate that. And they weigh the words of naysayers and those who worry what Pandora’s box space settlement could open.

What is valuable is that the Weinersmiths inject a healthy dose of realism into discussions given to hyperbole. Their style is such that readers have fun while considering serious matters. And since a space settlement effort will effect all of us, it’s well worth learning about what is involved and the challenges we may face. This book is a good place to start.

Review: Soonish

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Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

Summary: A cartoonist and scientist team up to look at ten emerging technologies and the challenges, both scientific and moral, that are involved in bringing these into existence in the “soonish” future.

There are an abundance of futurist scenarios about technological innovations on the horizon that will change, and perhaps, enhance our lives. In this fun and informative book, a scientist and cartoonist team up to explore ten of these technologies, the challenges involved with realizing them, and some of the challenges they may pose for us. In a text that explains these technologies in easily grasped language and amusing cartoons that accompany the text, the authors explore these emerging technologies:

  • Cheap access to space
  • Asteroid mining
  • Fusion power
  • Programmable matter
  • Robotic construction
  • Augmented reality
  • Synthetic biology
  • Precision medicine
  • Bioprinting
  • Brain-computer interfaces

Each chapter explains the current state (in 2017) of the technology, the challenges to its realization, how it might make things terrible, and ways it might make things wonderful.

Under challenges, I learned how expensive it is to get anything into space, how difficult it would be to build a space elevator that would reduce this cost, the challenges of transport and radiation with asteroid mining, the difficulty at present of developing a fusion reactor that puts out more energy than involved in making it work, the problems with large scale robotic construction–contractors can still build a house more cheaply, the privacy issues of augmented reality and medical information, and the difficulties in bioprinting anything more complex than thin layers of tissues.

Under terrible outcomes are the environmental impact of all that rocket fuel, the dangers of moving asteroids into earth intercepting trajectories creating an extinction event, that fusion will always remain in the future because of how hard it is to do, that programmable matter can be hacked, that control of augmented reality falls in the wrong hands, that synthetic biology creates killer organisms, and the use of brain-computer interfaces in manipulative ways.

The other side is wonderful outcomes including space exploration, various mineral resources, cheap and clean fusion power, “smart” construction and objects, and new versions of organs entirely compatible with our bodies because they are based on our genetic materials, greatly extending life, and cures for cancer and neurological diseases.

There has always been this double-edged character to technology. The Weinersmiths help us think beyond the ballyhooed technologies and a wonderful new world to the challenges and possible downsides. They do all this with a light touch that neither sees technology as a panacea nor to always be shunned. As in the past, there are challenges to be surmounted as there were in the past–some which seemed insurmountable, until solutions were found. In some areas, it is surprising how much progress has been made–precision medicine for example.

The greatest challenge then seems the human one. We have both the capacity for great good and unspeakable evil and no technological advance promises to change that. We also are not always very good at predicting the unintended effects of what we do and often our technological fixes only solve one problem while creating others. Perhaps at best, we can be aware of these things and not think we will be better, smarter, or more prescient than our predecessors. Sometimes a bit of humility is a good thing.