Robert Zubrin

Robert Zubrin (born 9 April 1952) is an American aerospace engineer and author, best known as a leading advocate of sending humans to Mars by methods cheaper and quicker than the conventional NASA model. With his colleague David Baker at Martin Marietta he was a driving force behind Mars Direct, a mission proposal whose key idea is to make oxygen, water and rocket propellant from the Martian atmosphere for the surface stay and the return journey. A modified version of the plan was later adopted by NASA as its design reference mission. After the success of his book The Case for Mars and a period of leadership in the National Space Society, he founded the Mars Society in 1998, an international organisation promoting a crewed Mars mission, privately funded if need be. He studied at the University of Rochester, graduating in 1974, and received a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Washington in 1992. He leads Pioneer Astronautics, a company researching innovative aerospace technologies, and is co-inventor of the nuclear salt-water rocket and, with Dana Andrews, of the magnetic sail.