The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
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Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#2What an incredible detailed read covering many aspects of what potentialy will be mankinds greatest endeavour. And if, it can potentialy be happening in the mid-near future! Reading this really gets your sci-fi mind going. Thanks for sharing!
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#3The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction.
And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmosphere requiring heavy duty habitats and lack of vegetation/fauna that can be harvested.
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#4The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction. And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmospher…
I would assume that a colony on Mars will have to rely on materials found on Mars for construction in order to be viable. Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#5Bitcoin ICOs, Mars colonization ... whatever happened to critical thinking?
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#6The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction. And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmospher…
I would assume that a colony on Mars will have to rely on materials found on Mars for construction in order to be viable. Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.
> Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.
I suspect that the development will occur before the initial buildings. The political/social/economic risk environment just doesn't include the option of sending mavericks up to see if they can figure out something that works.
The rovers we have now and the rovers we are building/will build are pretty good at identifying what we have to work with, and it's comparatively easy to test a material process or construction technique on Earth before trying it while wearing a spacesuit.
At the very least, I expect we'll have a viable base of initial buildings and a fuel/oxidizer depot set up before the first astronauts arrive.
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#7The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction. And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmospher…
I would assume that a colony on Mars will have to rely on materials found on Mars for construction in order to be viable. Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.
I would like to see more prototyping of techniques that could be used on Mars to create materials. It seems there is a lot of handwaving but not much real-world engineering. Before we haven't run a long-term trial for surviving in some desert on earth it would be irresponsible to fly to Mars.
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#8The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction. And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmospher…
10% of the us military budget could cover it (60 billion). There's the potential to use the volatiles there to make local enclosed atmosphere, we'd eventually have the ability to grow some food locally, but yes, it's probably going to cost 100 billion. There are plans to build in things like lava tubes to protect against gamma rays.
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#9> Assuming complete coverage of the planet with photosynthetic plants, it would take about a millennia to put the 120 mbar of oxygen in Mars' atmosphere needed to support human respiration in the open...Assuming the whole planet is covered with machines converting sunlight to electricity at 30% efficiency, and all this energy is applied to releasing oxygen from metallic oxides...atmosphere could be created in about 30 years.
Are plants really that inefficient? They're basically solar-powered nanomachines that release oxygen from carbon. Wikipedia reports "an overall photosynthetic efficiency of 3 to 6% of total solar radiation".
Re: The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1998)
#10In the end it depends on the economic incentives, or lack of them.
The potential economic value for space exploration comes from satellites orbiting earth (communication, sensors), mining near earth asteroids for rare and expensive minerals and possibly even energy generations. Moon is possible destination because it could serve Earth.
From the point of financing the effort Mars is just a sink. First spend hundreds of billions to start it, then billions per year to maintain it.
People don't spend their wealth to permanently reduce their living standards and the change for survival of their children. Permanently breathing bottled air inside a housing in a desert planet, having reduced lifespan etc. is not fun. All the space exploration romantics goes away in few years and people lose the interest.
If you want to colonize Mars permanently, first create (de facto) post scarcity economy on the Earth. Before that' there is no change for permanent colonization. Research settlement in Mars is possible.