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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

The British Interplanetary Society motto is "From Imagination to Reality" and, in manned Mars flight we will see both the true magnitude of that challenge and the effort that is needed to achieve it. This collection of papers from the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society is a contribution to that effort.

(Extracted from the Preface).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Foreword. Robert M. Zubrin.

-Preface.

-Section I: BASE BUILDING.

-The Resources of Mars for Human Settlement.
-Survival and Prosperity Using Regolith Resources on Mars.
-Rocket Propellants From Martian Resources.
-Wind Energy: A Resource for a Human Mission to Mars.
-Use of Martian Resources in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS).
-Mars Habitation 2057: Concept Design of a Mars Settlement in the Year 2057.
-Long Range Mobility on Mars.
-Design Considerations for a Mars Solar Energy System.
-The Polar Exploration of Mars.
-An Interplanetary Transportation System for Delivering Large Groups of People to Mars.
-The Utility of Geothermal Energy on Mars.

-Section II: COLONIZATION AND TERRAFORMING.

-Terraforming Mars With Four War-Surplus Bombs.
-The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization.
-Biological Aspects of the Ecopoiesis and Terraformation of Mars: Current Perspectives and Research.
-Genetic Modification and Selection of Microorganisms for Growth on Mars.
-Terraforming Mars: Conceptual Solutions to the Problem of Plant Growth in Low Concentrations of Oxygen.
-Environmental Ethics and Planetary Engineering.
-Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars.
Ozone and the Habitability of Mars.

-APPENDICES.

-Publications of the American Astronautical Society.

-INDEX.

-Numerical Index.
-Author Index.

OUR REVIEW

The second volume in this compilation of articles published at the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, devoted to the studies on the exploration of planet Mars, is centered on everything having to do with the advanced stages of our presence on the planet (construction of permanent stations, colonisation and even terraforming).

Although this book is the most risky of the two (the other is part I) due to the inclusion of proposals and technologies sited in a further future, the level of detail with which scientists and technologists are preparing our future on the surface of the Red Planet is certainly amazing. From all this one may conclude that, perhaps, technically, Humanity is not that far from colonising Mars, and that only other considerations (economic, political, and even social issues) are the ones that can forward or delay this capital episode in the history of Humanity.

Especially exciting are the proposals that describe new terraforming techniques, those that, transforming the physical and environmental characteristics of the planet so that they resemble those on the Earth, will ease our adaptation and survival on it.