• The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must (1996), with Richard Wagner. This outlines the Mars Direct plan along with speculation about the economic, social and technical viability of future Mars colonization.
• Creating a Spacefaring Civilization (1999). This ranges from the current status quo and innovative startups of the aerospace industry, through exploration and colonization of Mars, to a more futuristic look at humanity's possible colonization of the solar system and the feasibility of interstellar travel with known physics.
• The Adventures of Space Pioneers in the High Arctic (2003). Zubrin recounts the origins and progress of the Mars Society's Mars Analog Research Station project, including a variety of perils, both mundane and adventurous, that were overcome in establishing the first analog Mars habitat on Devon Island in the high Arctic. He offers highlights of what has been learned so far through that effort.
• First Landing (2001), a hard science fiction novel about a future Mars flight using the Mars Direct plan.
• The Holy Land (2003). This is an "SF satire on the Middle East crisis and the War on Terrorism, and concerns what happens when the liberal Western Galactic Empire relocates the oppressed Minervan sect to their ancient homeland of Kennewick, Washington, in the midst of a U.S. ruled by Christian fundamentalist fanatics.". The story was partly inspired by ?apek's War with the Newts.
• A Drama of the American Revolution in Five Acts (2005). This is an effort to humanize and show the multiple dimensions of Benedict Arnold, and to contrast the democratic values embodied in the spirit of the Revolution with the socially bankrupt classism embodied in the British subjects who won Arnold to their side.
• Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil (2007). An expansion on his recent articles criticizing both reliance on oil and the potential for hydrogen energy, while highlighting the benefits of switching more toward methanol and ethanol. It carries an endorsement from former CIA director James Woolsey.
• How to Live on Mars (2008). A tongue-in-cheek technically accurate guidebook for Mars-bound Earthlings about how to survive and thrive on the Red Planet, written from the point of view of a 22nd-century Mars native.

• Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space (1996), co-edited with Stanley Schmidt. This is a collection of fifteen selected non-fiction entries that had been published in Analog magazine over the years; it includes five articles authored or co-authored by Zubrin, including "The Hypersonic Skyhook", "Mars Direct: A Proposal for the Rapid Exploration and Colonization of the Red Planet" (co-authored with David A. Baker), "Colonizing the Outer Solar System", "Terraforming Mars" (co-authored with Christopher McKay), and "The Magnetic Sail". Notable additional contributors include Robert L. Forward and the godfather of terraforming, Martyn J. Fogg, each of whom contributed two articles.
• From Imagination to Reality: Mars Exploration Studies of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society : Precursors and Early Piloted Exploration Missions (1997).
• From Imagination to Reality: Mars Exploration Studies of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society : Base Building, Colonization and Terraformation (1997).
• Proceedings of the Founding Convention of the Mars Society (1999), co-edited with Maggie Zubrin. This contains articles corresponding to talks presented at the founding convention of the Mars Society in Boulder, Colorado in August 1998; it includes contributions from Zubrin, Buzz Aldrin, Martyn Fogg, and many others.
• Colonizing a New World (2002 Apogee Books), co-edited with Frank Crossman. This contains articles corresponding to talks presented at the annual conventions of the Mars Society in Boulder in 1999, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2000, and at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California in 2001.
• Exploring and Settling a New World (2005 Apogee Books), co-edited with Frank Crossman. This contains over 130 articles corresponding to talks presented at the annual conventions of the Mars Society in Boulder in 2002, in Eugene, Oregon in 2003, and in Chicago, Illinois in 2004.
• Energy Victory (2007)

Patents

• , "Reusable rocket airplane"
• , "Reusable rocket-propelled high altitude airplane and method and apparatus for mid-air oxidizer transfer to said airplane"
• , "Nitrous oxide based oxygen supply system"
• , "Three-player chess board"