Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

Bill White · 2003-09-26 15:09:02

IMHO - there is NOTHING on Mars that -can- be economically exported to the surface of the Earth. And there is NOTHING on Mars than -cannot- be exported economically to LEO. (Delivery to the Moon only amplifies this result.)
Indeed, if a large Marsian aquifer were tapped, sending water from Mars to LEO would be "cheaper" than sending water from the Pacific Ocean to LEO especially if Mars-made rocket boosters were used. Mars may well feed the giant space tourism hotels some dream of building.
Wouldn't this equation be different if a high-capacity space elevator was in place? How about a mass-driver on one of the Martian volcanoes?
B

In a word? Yes.

Cheaper access to space (Earth to LEO) would reduce the economic leverage for sending Mars resources to LEO or Luna. At $100 per kg from Earth to LEO that is all you could charge for delivery from Mars. A Catch-22?

But as many of you know, I do not accept the economic forecasts of the space elevator people. We just cannot run enough elevator cars fast enough to get the economies of scale needed to get the costs as low as is being hyped. Besides, elevators will cost more than is being hyped.

Not that we shouldn't start building one, ASAP!

mcshlong · 2003-09-26 16:35:18

Terraform Mars don't export anything back to Earth except maybe a warship to take over the UN every once in a while.

Tyr · 2003-09-26 17:23:03

Mars could export copper, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen to Earth orbit and the Moon. But where is the money to get this done going to come from? Just because someone else said we'd be working 3 days a week by now doesn't mean I'm wrong because he was. In 100 years, technology will be astounding. Look at what has happened since I was born in 1959-color TV, cable, satellite, the internet, home computers, big screen TV, video games, cell phones, man has landed on the Moon, the Shuttle, Viking, Voyager and many other probes, the Keck telescope, the Hubble, VCRs, DVDs, CD players, fax machines, heart transplants, psychiatric medicines, longer survival times for cancer patients, soft contact lenses, laser eye surgery and hair removal, hybrid cars; cars with AT, power brakes & steering,AC, and all kinds of goodies as standard equipment-unlike my old '64 Chevy that didn't have any of that, GPS, the eradication of smallpox, genetically modified crops, the unraveling of the human genome, genetic engineering, microwave ovens, etc. etc. In 1959, my parents still owned a Victrola. Times have changed and will continue to do so. So what if we aren't working 3 days weeks? Give it a few more decades. Have faith.

Tyr · 2003-09-26 17:31:59

I forgot-cordless phones, digital cameras, PDAs, calculators, LCD wristwatches, improved weather forcasting thanks to satellites, comm sats, the shift from RR trains to jets for millions of people, the Concorde, pacemakers, the prevalence of central AC (most people in the fifties didn't have it!), digital special effects, Kevlar, wi-fi, and whatever else you can think of.

alokmohan · 2003-09-27 05:54:09

Record of UN is poor.They cant solve problems on earth.Mars will be a new type of society.So we should export platinum and deuterium.

RobertDyck · 2003-09-27 07:50:28

Since we're talking about advances since 1959, I should mention another point. When I was studying business principles in high school in the 1970s the teacher pointed out that in previous decades (before World War 2) many business leaders actually criticized people for spending company money on research and development. Their attitude was that it's a waste of money, and any belief that a new product would pay for the research is highly risky at best. They viewed new product development as stupid. All products must be based on existing, proven techniques. My teacher laughed at this, and stated now in our modern time (1970s) we know better. Research and development is a critical part of any business. New products are always coming out, and you need new products that your competition doesn't have. In fact, a new product can be the basis of a new business; providing something that has never existed before. His statement is treated as so obvious today that most business people don't even think about it. The rate of change has accelerated, not only are new versions of existing products coming out, but new things that didn't exist before are coming out.

The Victrola of our parent's generation has been replaced by transistor radios, then hi-fi stereos. Records at 78rpm were replaced by Long-Playing records (LP's) that worked at 33rpm and higher fidelity. Then vinyl records were completely replaced by laser compact discs (CD's). When I was a child there was no way to record a movie off TV, some people had 8mm home movie systems to record on film, but that was expensive and had to be taken in to be developed. Most photolabs could not handle movie film; places you could take it were few and expensive. When I was in my 20's the first VCR was introduced; that was a new product that never existed before. Beta came out first, then VHS. I still have my old Betamax, and the picture is still clearer and sound better then the best VHS system available today. Then laser video disks came out, they were 14" platters and you couldn't record on them. People didn't buy video disk player because you could only play rented videos, you couldn't record. Oh, by the way that is why CD's are called Compact Disks; the 14" video disks came out first. Now we have Digital Video Disks (DVD's) that are the same size as CD's (5.25") but use blue lasers to pack in more information. Personal computers didn't exist either when I was a child. When I went to high school we still used punched cards in school. The stores had the first PC's, but that was initially an assemble-yourself electronic kit; the HeathKit H-8, or Apple 1. When I was in grade 11 the completely assembled Apple 2 came out, and the TRS-80 model 1 level 1. These were 8-bit computers running at 4MHz with 4 kilobytes of RAM (yes 4KB of RAM, much less than 1MB), and had an audio cassette tape for storage. When I got my first job as a computer programmer in 1981 (half way through first year college), I used an expensive business PC with an 8-bit processor, 60KB RAM, 2KB video memory, and 2 floppy disks each storing 1.0MB on a 5.25" disk. Later IBM came out with their first PC, but they went back to 320KB disks (don't ask my why they used the smaller capacity). IBM likes to claim that invented the PC, but they didn't. IBM just created one particular upgrade, from a Z80 processor with the S100 bus and CP/M operating system to an 8088 processor with an 8-bit ISA bus and MS-DOS version 1.0 operating system.

Now here is the point. Many people are criticizing NASA and the aerospace industry for attempting to use new technology on the new spacecraft they develop. These people are claiming you can only come out with products that use existing, established techniques. Although the X-33 used the latest of everything, nothing on it was new. During development, Lockheed-Martin changed the solid-wall composite tank to a hollow-wall honey-comb structure tank. That new tank was the only new thing on the X-33, but that is what failed in its first test. Today people are strongly criticizing the X-33 team for trying to use new technology. And now the debate over an OSP has brought up strong calls to return to the same expendable capsule design that was developed in the early 1960s. Have we learned nothing? Has the aerospace industry fallen back into the old mentality of never research any new product? This was the business mentality before World War 2! We supposedly have learned better. We need to develop something that is truly new, a spacecraft that is less expensive to operate and safer. I think that will require a reusable vehicle.

The continuing new versions of PC have come to a point where we don't need faster computers, in fact companies like Microsoft are putting in bloat-ware to slow down our computers and consume memory for no reason just to get us to continually buy a new computer. What bloat-ware am I talking about? Did you know that Excel'95 and '98 have "Easter eggs" in them? If you click just the right sequence, Excel'98 will take you into a flight simulator game. Now try to think of how much memory is taken by that flight simulator software. So PC manufacturers and Microsoft are trying to convince us we need to re-purchase their product every 2 years just to maintain what we have. They need to develop something that is truly new, rather than introduce bloat-ware. Microsoft claims that each version of Windows runs faster than the previous, but it really runs slower and takes more memory to do the same job. Windows'95 ran on 16MB of RAM, OSR2 required 24MB, Windows'98 required 32MB, Windows'98SE required 48MB, Windows'ME required 64MB, and Windows'XP requires 128MB. These memory increases are to do the same job. The PC industry is supposedly the leading high-technology that is introducing new products, but in reality it isn't introducing any major new capabilities, new (sloppy) software consumes any memory or speed increases making the computer respond with the same speed and effective memory as before. Does this indicate that the entire high-tech economy is collapsing?

Byron · 2003-09-27 08:26:14

Excellent post, Robert! Very informative and educational - thank you.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about "bloatware"...I have a P4 2.4 gigahertz machine with 512 MB RAM (built it myself for much cheaper than a Dell..lol) That sounds like an incredibly fast processor, but when I think about the Commodore 64 that I had back in 1983 (20 years ago!) that boasted full color and sound, with the capability of running Microsoft Flight Simulator...and it cost about the same as the computer I'm using now (in adjusted dollars)...you really do have to wonder about the rate of progress of personal computing technology.

Sure, I can do all kinds of wonderful things on this machine, such as interactive 3-D online games, streaming video, etc...but, really, why does Windows XP have to hog so much memory? There's really no reason for it except planned obsolescence...but hopefully the American consumer will soon wake up and start smelling the coffee for once. I would give anything to be able to hold on to a single computer for 8 or 10 years...if it does everything what I want it do, why do I need something "better?"

B

RobS · 2003-09-27 09:00:54

I won't comment about the first book I wrote in the early 1980s on 8-inch diskettes using a "computer" that had 32 k of memory and no hard disk. . . .

The thing to remember about Martian exports is that "profit" comes from the price differential. It is true that if it costs $4,000 per kilo to launch something to LEO from Earth and $3,999 from Mars, it is cheaper to ship from Mars. But if you need a billion bucks of surplus cash to do something, you will need to ship a billion kilograms of that thing to get it! Besides, many people will forgo a small price advantage if cargo can arrive only every 26 months. The moon will be a strong competitor.

I hadn't thought about magnesium, or solid fueled boosters in general. You are right, you can launch something into low Mars orbit with solid fuels. But note that the exhaust velocity/specific impulse of solid fuels is about half that of hydrogen/oxygen, and Mars orbital velocity is about half of Earth's. So the resulting mass ratio will not be much better for Mars. You'll have to make a lot of solid fuel to launch each tonne of cargo to Mars orbit, and even more to send it to Earth. In the first few decades the number of folks on Mars will be relatively few (unless we send the first humans to Mars about the year 2100, when it'll be easier) and they won't have the technology or human resources to be making solid-fueled boosters. (Morton Thiokol employs thousands to do it.) It will be easier to use a reusable liquid-fueled vehicle that is flown back to LEO for refurbishment every few oppositions.

As for an elevator, the technology is looking more and more promising; who knows? But Mars won't get an elevator for some decades after humans arrive there, unless, again, the first humans arrive about a century from now. The cost of transporting and deploying an elevator will be so large, it won't be practical until Mars has a population measured at least in many hundreds, if not thousands. In contrast, I could see exports starting using a reusable Mars shuttle of the sort I postulate in Mars-24 (on another thread) within a decade of the arrival of the first humans.

-- RobS

Tyr · 2003-09-27 10:19:46

Oh well, I'm still satisfied running Windows 98 at 466 Mhz, but I've heard similar complaints about 'bloatware.'

Somebody criticized the UN for its poor track record. I would blame the communists. The world is still not as free as we would like it to be. Civilization is 5,000 years old but slavery only ended 150 years ago, unless you count some of the slave labor and sweat shops in the 3rd World today. It's amazing we've made as much progress as we have in such a short time.

I still remain optimistic. We don't have flying cars and other sci-fi stuff, but our lives have been enriched tremendously in the past 40 years and the trend will continue. Advances in medicine and biotechnology will improve our lives and the hydrogen economy will be revolutionary.

Getting back to Mars exports. I have long thought that Mars could make money selling light elements to industry in Earth-Moon space, if there is any in the future. Mars is a world with all the elements necessary for civilization. Mars could reach economic sef sufficiency, unlike the Moon or space colonies. Will exports even be necessary?

Ian Flint · 2003-09-30 14:01:56

We have some great replies here!

Let's just sum up what has been discussed.

1. Only exports with values of over 1 million dollars per tonne are of significant interest (if you want to make a profit).

2. Gold and other rare elements could be profitable -- IF -- high grade ore is found and -- IF -- mining cost aren't too outragious. That's two IFs. I bet there is a good probability of both being true, though.

3. Mars is known to contain plenty of deuterium in the million dollar per tonne range. (Case for Mars)

4. Mars should be able to launch supplies to space cheaper than Earth can. Mars could therefore supply LEO, the Moon, Asteroids, etc. cheaper than Earth can. This is true only when Mars overcomes the handicap of having absolutely no infrastruture.

5. The space elevator makes all above arguments moot, say some. The space elevator is still sci-fi, say others.

6. I am an isolationist Red. Stay of my planet!, say still others.

Let me know if I missed anything.
All else that has been discussed is interesting but a bit off topic.

Josh Cryer · 2003-09-30 14:22:07

I think there's a valid argument for resource locality. Resources on Mars, in most every case, are more valuable on Mars than they would be as exports, due to the availiabity of other similar resources in orbit around the sun (obviously outside of a gravity well, with the potential to be moved about by free solar energies).

I think that asteroids can offer all the elements Mars could, with a much lower cost (in energy) per tonn. Also, to Earth, specifically, the moon would be an even more obvious choice for resource exportation; it's already in orbit around the sun and it's big enough to build infrastructure upon it. I think physical ability to use a given resource will become irrelevant, because despite what the nay-sayers say, there is an obvious exponential trend in computing technology. We're not there yet, by any means, but it'll happen eventually; producing any given object will become quite easy (though obviously energy will still be a concern). I actually see this sort of breakthrough as a prerequisite for space colonization.

I don't see migrant workers mining in vast copper mines while wearing space suits. I more or less see AI running about doing these things for us as we sit back and get fat.

RobertDyck · 2003-09-30 21:02:26

I'm in favour of asteroid mining; after all, the asteroids are a planet that is already ground up for us. However, there is a serious lack of resources. The M-type (metal) asteroids are extremely rich in iron and nickel, and have mineable quantities of precious metals. However, they are poor in carbon and water. You must add carbon to iron to make steel; water is needed for spacecraft fuel. The C-type asteroids (carbonaceous chondrite) have much higher concentrations of carbon and ice, and a higher concentration of magnesium. Both tend to be poor in aluminum. On the Moon, the most abundant element is oxygen (everything is an oxide), the second most abundant is silicon (rock), the third is aluminum. There is also iron, but it's an oxide; much more energy intensive to smelt. Iron on asteroids is oxide free. The Moon also has large deposits of ilmenite, a titanium mineral (FeTiO3). The moon only has ice at the bottom of craters at the poles where sunlight never touches it, and its concentration is about one cup of water over an area the size of a football field. There is no known source of nitrogen or carbon on the Moon. This adds another problem to smelting on the Moon; getting titanium out of ilmenite requires hydrogen. Hydrogen can be recycled, but there always tends to be some lost. Smelting iron out of iron oxide requires carbon monoxide. Smelting aluminum out of aluminum oxide requires the mineral cryolite (Na3AlF6) which contains fluorine. I haven't seen any fluorine on the Moon, either. This makes industry on the Moon difficult. Industry on the asteroids requires mining at least two asteroids at once, one M-type the other C-type, to get the required material to make steel and fuel to transport it around.

Mars, on the other hand, has everything needed for industry. It also has gravity, which is needed by most food crops. Living things require primarily the four elements Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen, but also require trace amounts of almost every other element. On Mars the only nitrogen we have found so far is atmospheric, and that is only 2.7% of an atmosphere that is roughly 0.7% as much pressure as Earth. However, we can concentrate that within greenhouses. Everything else we need to grow plants is there. We haven't found cryolite on Mars yet, but there is mica and on Earth black mica contains fluorine. We have found ilmenite, carbon dioxide (which we can make into carbon monoxide), and abundant ice, as well as oxides of aluminum, iron, and silicon.

Venus has many resources, and roughly 6 times the total mass of nitrogen in its atmosphere than Earth. However, its surface temperature is 850?F, its pressure is 90 times the Earth, and the air near the surface is filled with carbonyl sulphide, a stronger corrosive than sulphuric acid. Venus can be terraformed using organic techniques, but it's much more complicated than Carl Segan envisioned. The biggest problem with Venus is that it must be terraformed first, before any colony is established.

The bottom line is that the Moon and asteroids are rich in specific metals, but require a lot of supplies. Only Mars has everything for a self-sustaining colony.

As for automated mining; Canada is now leading development of remote mining. The mining industry in industrialized countries has used heavy equipment for years. Remote mining places radio controls and video cameras on the equipment. Operators work on the surface, in front of a monitor with a joystick and controls. If there's a cave-in they have to dig out equipment worth millions of dollars, but no one dies. You can take weeks, if necessary, to dig out the equipment. Since humans are so much better at making judgements, and so much better at recognising what they're looking at, I see humans operating much of the equipment. But that would mean humans in a habitat on Mars. Furthermore, it still takes human hands to setup the equipment, and it definitely takes humans to repair it.

RobertDyck · 2003-09-30 21:32:37

Oops, I slipped off topic. Exports to the moon will include food and cryolite. The Moon will probably get carbon from asteroids and burn it with lunar oxygen to form carbon monoxide to smelt iron, or carbon dioxide to feed plants.

clark · 2003-10-01 09:38:12

All this exporting from Mars or the Moon...

Thought experiment: What would be the neccessary lift capacity on Earth to send people off to colonize the Moon or Mars? Wouldn't any investment in Terran lift capability reduce the cost of accessing space? If costs to access space are reduced (for Earth), dosen't that neccessarily reduce the economic advantage of any Martian or Moon based exports?

If we are colonizing, we are talking about sendign thousands of people up into space, and then supporting them.

We can do three now on a semi-permanent basis. That costs billions.

To send up thousands though, we would need greater capabilities in sending more people up, for less.

The point though is that any venture to colonize Mars will create more infrastructure to get people into space (so it is easier and cheaper and safer). This has the net effect of undermining the economic incentive you are pointing out so far.

Tell me how I am mistaken, please.

RobertDyck · 2003-10-01 10:29:53

Technology to reduce launch cost on Earth can also be applied to Mars. Mars has much lower velocity required to achieve orbit, and lower velocity to escape into an interplanetary trajectory. Unless air breathing SCRAM jet based launch vehicles are developed on Earth, it should always take less fuel to go from Mars to Low Earth Orbit than from the surface of the Earth.

I did a calculation a couple years ago for a simple passenger launch vehicle. Build a passenger module that fits in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay. With airline economy class size seating and two decks, as well as an airlock with docking collar to mate with the space station, that would fit 104 passengers. The cost to commercially rent the entire cargo bay of the Space Shuttle was $142 million in 1992. Add $14 million per launch to pay for the passenger module, salaries for flight attendants (seated in the mid-deck), as well as passenger terminal operations, and profit. That would work out to $1.5 million per passenger. This only works if every seat of the Space Shuttle is filled. Passengers would have to pay extra for space hotel accommodations. Obviously after the Columbia incident this will never happen, but it demonstrates economics with current technology. A dedicated passenger shuttle should cost less, since the fuselage can be integrated with the passenger compartment, and there is no need for cargo bay doors, cargo support trunions, or a robot arm. Furthermore, the mass of the passenger module and passengers themselves would be less than the Shuttle lift capacity. Lower lift capacity translates to lower cost.

Reducing launch cost to 1/10th the price would make colonization economically feasible. That price was the target for VentureStar.

clark · 2003-10-01 10:44:43

Reducing launch cost to 1/10th the price would make colonization economically feasible. That price was the target for VentureStar.

I agree. However, here is the catch-22, the price at which colonization is made economically feasible is also the price at which a Martian economy is made unfeasible.

While Mars may have a lower launch cost, it also has less infrastructure in place. And it is highly unlikely that is could ever match Earth's infrastructure (in a reasonable time frame).

It will be easier for Earth to build and manufacture and expand it's industrial base- not so for Mars (or space). Space is free, bu the space for humans to live and work in is not. Here, we set up a rocket facotry in the desert- we only have to worry about roads really. On Mars, you have to worry about structural integrity, air quality, air production, power production, the cost of human labor (astronomical...hehe). All of this comes into the final price of whatever it is you are selling or making.

So how can A mArtian economy compete with a terran economy that can cheaply access space?

Tyr · 2003-10-01 14:13:17

How can a martian economy compete with Earth and cheap access to space? It probably can't. Good point. I'll keep it in mind from now on.

Why does Mars even need to export? Can't Mars develop a completely independent economy? As for infrastructure, I still say robots will build most of that and we will live in a much richer future where sc-fi dreams do come true, although I'll be dead by then, so why do I even bother?

We could always manufacture things that are illegal on Earth and sell them on the interplanetary black market, if you want to make some more colorful speculations about the future.

clark · 2003-10-01 14:17:55

Why does Mars even need to export? Can't Mars develop a completely independent economy?

Doubtful. But, think of it like this, there is no difference between setteling the Saharra or Mars. Indeed, the Saharra would be much easier, and cheaper than Mars.

Figure out a way to make a thriving society in the middle of nothing, and you have your answer.

RobertDyck · 2003-10-01 15:05:04

I don't believe the cost for access to LEO will be reduced more than $1,000 per pound. Using the ISS orbit as the standard, not 185km at 28? inclination, then Shuttle can lift 16,050kg. At $142 million per launch that is $8,847.35 per kg, or $4,013 per pound. If launch cost can be reduced to $1,000 per kg to ISS then colonization is feasible.

One simiple way to do it is stop adding in the cost of all NASA's space centers. Johnson provides mission control, is used to train astronauts, and has a ground facility with full-size mockup of the shuttle and ISS for dry runs of space operations. This is necessary for science missions and prepairing to assemble ISS, but wouldn't be needed for space tourism. Marshall, Stennis, Dryden, Glenn, and Goddard would only be required for development. A commercial passenger spacecraft would also not require involvement by NASA Headquarters. If the Kennedy Space Center budget is truely the whole cost for launch operations, that would reduce Shuttle program cost for 2003 from $3.208 billion to just $167.3 million. For some reason the Michoud Assembly Facility was not listed in the budget breakdown by center; that is where the external tank is manufactured. However, the breakdown by function has $266.6 million for flight operations and $589.3 million for ground operations.

Also constructing a purpose-built passenger shuttle avoids designing for more lift capacity than required. All these things can reduce operational cost without any launch vehicle technology changes. Instead of the Johnson Space Center, the passenger shuttle will require a passenger terminal. Passengers may require an off-site training center. It shouldn't be hard to keep terminal, training, and flight control costs to much less than $1.778 billion per year.

So that leaves Mars competing with existing expendible launch vehicles. Would it really be hard to compete with that?

Josh Cryer · 2003-10-01 15:32:08

Robert,

Rare earth elements aren't necessary for development, mind you, as long as you have the energy (in the megajoules). The processes envisioned in the robot colony thread in fact remove all rare earth elements from the picture, the only issue is carbon and hydrogen (which is still recycled quite a bit in the auxon cycle). In my opinion, both elements which can be readily found anywhere if you know where to look.

It would be unwise, in my opinion- not only from a political, but also a technological standpoint- to have processes that relied on rare elements. A quote from the paper I obtained:

The approach outlined here uses silicon, aluminum, carbon and hydrogen as the reducing agents. Each of these is in turn reduced in another process step, so there is no net input of the elements in reduced form. Carbon plays a special role because it becomes gaseous when oxidized and, as a result, its reducing power increases steadily with temperature. It is moderate at low temperatures but at 2200C carbon reduces all the other common elements. An implication of this behavior is that depending on the temperature, carbon can act as an oxygen donor as well as an oxygen acceptor. The scheme described here has as its goal the complete separation of raw dirt into its elemental constituents. In reality, much of the material would ultimately be used in its oxidized form, and in this sense complete separation and reduction is unnecessary.

Yes, it certainly requires a lot of energy, so you would need either a nuclear power plant, or a large solar field, but I think their math is sound. Let me know if you want to read the paper.

BTW, I see no reason why we couldn't colonize Venus; just have cool floating cities. Make 'em out of hydrocarbons.

clark,

I don't see why it's doubtful that Mars could have an independent economy.

RobS · 2003-10-01 17:12:02

I don't know why any place wants a truly independent economy. No one in the US worries whether Indiana (where I live) has an independent economy or not. I do not worry that my bread comes from North Dakota wheat or my car from Tennesee. The global economy is drawing Earth together and the ultimate result should be better for everyone, if we can establish international standards (otherwise we have the same problems that the railroads and telegraph created when the US developed a national economy in the late 19th century: laissez-faire and vast inequities).

Mars ultimately will have to have something to sell because Martians will want to buy terrestrial goods, from the latest Hollywood movie to the latest Barbie doll. They'll have to pay for them somehow. As soon as people on Mars have children, and those kids get old enough to know what a birthday party or Christmas is, they will want things they see on tv (and they will be watching terrestrial tv).

Their best bet for exporting is to export items Mars has in abundance that are less abundant elsewhere. Meteoritic debris will be available in the billions of tonnes all over the surface; but that's true of the lunar surface as well. (The first asteroid mining to be tried will be of sand-size meteoritic debris in the lunar regolith, I think). Thus iridium and platinum, which are relatively rich in nickel-iron meteorites, will be cheaper to produce on Mars than on Earth, but may not be cheaper than on the moon (depending on the use of carbon-based extraction technologies that may be expensive on the moon because of the rarity of carbon). Deuterium will be cheaper to extract from Martian water than terrestrial water, but I am not sure a five to one enrichment will help much. (It will be MUCH cheaper to extract from water in the Venus atmosphere which is much richer in deuterium, so deuterium exports may be a good economic basis for a Venus orbit facility).

What Mars has in abundance that the moon doesn't--probably--are minerals that form by hydrothermal processes, that is, processes that involve hot water coursing around underground, dissolving and redepositing. Most of the Earth's mineral deposits form this way. Igneous activity is often the source of both the elements and of the hot water. Thus copper deposits are often found close to basalt flows (and basalt is very common on Mars). The moon appears to have had largely dry volcanism. However, there may have been some hydrothermal activity on the moon and we may find minerals of that sort on Luna. Mercury seems even more likely to have had hydrothermal activity and thus could also have mineral deposits.

My familiarity with ore geology is very limited, but I find myself drawn back to gold again. It can be concentrated to large amounts in very small areas by hydrothermal activity; as I noted before, nuggets weighing many kilograms have been found. There may be other rare earths available as well. If there is granitic melt on Mars--none has been found yet, but it is possible--there may bbe pegmatites, which are enriched in all sorts of unusual elements and minerals.

-- RobS

Free Spirit · 2003-10-01 21:53:29

Tourists and explorers could provide another avenue of income. It's probably safe to assume there will be plenty of people who will want to visit Mars or test their mettle out in the Martian badlands. I think Martians though would be wise to develop an economy that can stand independant of Earth. Political upheavals, bad economies, etc on Earth could compromise the survival ability of Martians.

Bill White · 2003-10-01 22:01:17

I am disappointed in you all - - ever since this thread started I have been holding back one word waiting to see if someone else would say it - - something a Mars settlement could export quite easily at very little cost.

Advertising.

How much could NASA receive for selling the exclusive broadcast rights for the first Mars mission. Not the launch, not the landing but the whole thing start to finish.

Heck - - not to reveal plot devices - - but in my pending book a multi-national media corporation (using Rupert Murdoch as an example) offers the Chinese $500 million dollars for exclusive worldwide broadcast rights to their first landing on the moon and a $500 million bonus if the video shows Chinese astronauts picking up debris left by Apollo 11.

Exclusive world wide broadcast rights. Australia, Europe, Japan, SE Asia, Africa, South America and North America. Everywhere. The re-sale rights to those media rights would well exceed $1 billion, IMHO especially if it were hyped by media professionals in the weeks and months leading up to the Chinese landing.

In my developing plot, NASA and the US Congress go ballistic and seek to charge these media executives with treason.

clark · 2003-10-02 09:30:57

We could start selling advertising space on trees in the national parks too. That would be grand.

Josh Cryer · 2003-10-02 10:05:38

Mars probably wouldn't have a truely independent 'economy.' But I can see how spaces over very very long distances would, for all intents and purposes, have to be truely independent. Sirrius couldn't possibly rely on Sol for anything! First of all, even if it could be shown to be practical from an energy standpoint, proximity would make enforcing payment impossible. Exchange would be pretty much something done for the sake of doing it, not for profitablity. And even then, it would seem 'one way.'

Sending cargo or a signal would take two years, so obviously a continous stream of information and cargo ships would be ideal; however, due to distances involved, you're not guaranteed a return.

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#26 2003-09-26 15:09:02

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#27 2003-09-26 16:35:18

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#28 2003-09-26 17:23:03

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#29 2003-09-26 17:31:59

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#30 2003-09-27 05:54:09

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#31 2003-09-27 07:50:28

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#32 2003-09-27 08:26:14

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#33 2003-09-27 09:00:54

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#34 2003-09-27 10:19:46

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#35 2003-09-30 14:01:56

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#36 2003-09-30 14:22:07

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#37 2003-09-30 21:02:26

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#38 2003-09-30 21:32:37

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#39 2003-10-01 09:38:12

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#40 2003-10-01 10:29:53

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#41 2003-10-01 10:44:43

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#42 2003-10-01 14:13:17

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#43 2003-10-01 14:17:55

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#44 2003-10-01 15:05:04

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#45 2003-10-01 15:32:08

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#46 2003-10-01 17:12:02

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#47 2003-10-01 21:53:29

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#48 2003-10-01 22:01:17

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#49 2003-10-02 09:30:57

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

#50 2003-10-02 10:05:38

Re: Martian Exports - What can martians sell?

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