The focus is the food, food supply and the methods and machinery that will need to be developed in order to launch and build a successful population of humans on Mars. Space travel is not for the faint of heart and this book is an honest and unvarnished effort to portray the true endurance one must possess to survive life in a Martian colony. Claman also adds a bit of humor throughout the book and in the final chapter includes part of a fictional story of a possible future society on Mars. This book presents a realistic and well reasoned vision of the possible pitfalls, hardships and incomprehensible sacrifices that will confront the first people who attempt to establish a colony on Mars. Extremes in temperature, a toxic unbreathable atmosphere, working conditions that will be uncomfortable and stabilized food rations are all part of a combat theater that seem eerily similar to many of the situations one could expect to find on a mission to Mars.