Review:
This book proposes an answer to a question I never heard asked: how would a NASA mars mission go if everyone was either incompetent or a raging asshole?
Answer is: not very well.
Also: author, if you have a rocket enging that can make a capsule hover for a week, then you have a rocket engine that can put a capsule in orbit a dozen times over, and the whole technical side of the story breaks down, sorry, the amount of delta-v to reach mars in a month is (technical term) a gazillion times the amount you need to reach low earth orbit.