New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: This forum is accepting new registrations by emailing newmarsmember * gmail.com become a registered member. Read the Recruiting expertise for NewMars Forum topic in Meta New Mars for other information for this process.

#101 2011-11-30 09:53:22

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,907
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Pfft. I find it unlikely a country on Terra would wish to sustain a "colony" for several centuries, or be able to. Sending people there without any desire to build a colony or have any kind of self-sufficiency is stupid.


Use what is abundant and build to last

Offline

#102 2011-11-30 09:59:02

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Actually I think the idea of a one way mission is quite practical.  Start a base right off the bat andquickly transition to a self-sufficient colony.


-Josh

Offline

#103 2011-11-30 10:18:57

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

JoshNH4H wrote:

Actually I think the idea of a one way mission is quite practical.  Start a base right off the bat andquickly transition to a self-sufficient colony.

NASA as well as politicians have become extremely risk adverse. This extremely expensive endeavor would likely become a suicide mission. You have a doable plan for lobbying congress? No it is not quite practical. Utterly impractical, I would say.

Zubrin's been trying for decades to get commitment to manned Mars missions -- with no success. But getting political support isn't the hardest part. Quickly transitioning to a self sufficient colony will be much harder.

Last edited by Hop (2011-11-30 10:20:38)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#104 2011-11-30 13:56:46

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

I suppose I should have specified; given political support for the mission objectives, it is very much technically feasible.  I believe that it does make sense to start with a few two-way missions in order to get some good exploration done before the colonization and base-building starts.

It's difficult to transition from a base to a self-sufficient colony, but it can be done.  Each of the systems is quite doable given an investment in machinery from Earth, and this investment will absolutely be worth it in the long run.


-Josh

Offline

#105 2011-11-30 22:50:06

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,433

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Astronauts would do this mission and so would scienctist so whats the problem if politicains are not able to understand that risk is part of the greater glory that an explorer seeks.

Offline

#106 2011-12-01 03:44:40

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Terraformer, pioneer wrote:

Pfft. I find it unlikely a country on Terra would wish to sustain a "colony" for several centuries, or be able to. Sending people there without any desire to build a colony or have any kind of self-sufficiency is stupid.

Well, that happened a lot in human history. European colonies that did survive in the Americas were heavily backed up by their powers, for decades, or even centuries, as long as they did provide something in exchange. Viking Groenland went extinct int the early 1400s when they lost their cotact with Norway. French and swedish colonies in Brazil had the same fate.

Takes a long time and a lot of money to make a settlement viable, and usually they are viable only through trade, even after centuries. Viking Groenland had no metals, & did buy tools in exchange for luxuries(ivory, falcons, bears). Even today, many of the French possessions overseas are heavily dependant from food & industrial stuff from the motherland. Pitcairn, the island of the Bounty mutineers & their polynesian wives, was about to starve when it was saved by the british navy resupplying it with tools.

I find it unlikely for a Martian colony to survive infinitively without exchanges with the homeland. Too many things are needed for survival, and it needs a huge country to have them all. On earth, no country has them all. China lacks petrol, all others lack rare earth elements. Modern economic needs both.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

Offline

#107 2011-12-01 10:39:08

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Glandu- You make a good point about complete self-sufficiency; however, Mars does have certain advantages on that front compared to most earth societies.  They do, after all, have an entire planet with which to work.  That planet has just about all of the resources needed for an industrial civilization somewhere on its surface.  The manufacturing base might not be sufficient to make things like semiconductor chips and super-fancy high precision parts, but it should be enough to make relatively simple brayton turbines and the like.  The colony has to be self-sufficient, but it does not necessarily need to be an autarky.

Also, given that we're in an era of quite advanced technology, I think that it's rather unlikely that anyone will starve; in bad circumstances, whatever they be (short of a catastrophe like a magnitude 9 Marsquake or a meteor impacting near vital infrastructure), I could see a Martian colony being subject to slowed growth, or even in a bad pinch reduced living standards and negative growth, but not starvation.


-Josh

Offline

#108 2011-12-01 10:48:46

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

JoshNH4H wrote:

Glandu- You make a good point about complete self-sufficiency; however, Mars does have certain advantages on that front compared to most earth societies.  They do, after all, have an entire planet with which to work.  That planet has just about all of the resources needed for an industrial civilization somewhere on its surface.  The manufacturing base might not be sufficient to make things like semiconductor chips and super-fancy high precision parts, but it should be enough to make relatively simple brayton turbines and the like.  The colony has to be self-sufficient, but it does not necessarily need to be an autarky.

I believe you're suffering from the Home Depot syndrome.

It's so convenient to buy something at Home Depot that it's easy to forget it's made with minerals mined from diverse mines, components made by diverse factories, all linked by an extensive transportation infrastructure.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#109 2011-12-01 11:09:51

Grypd
Member
From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Of course technology is advancing with the possibility of 3D printers being able to make everything that is needed but of course they do require supplies and power to work so...

Still a long time before that happens.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

Offline

#110 2011-12-01 13:15:00

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Grypd wrote:

Of course technology is advancing with the possibility of 3D printers being able to make everything that is needed but of course they do require supplies and power to work so...

Still a long time before that happens.

Here's a 3D printer for metals objects. Lays down a layer of stainless steel powder. Then a binding agent (doesn't specify what binding agent). Then lifted out of the powder, heated and cured infused with bronze.

So three feed stocks: stainless steel, binding agent, and bronze. The feedstocks still need to mined from diverse places.

It's rough. Minimum detail size 1 mm. Doesn't specify how strong it is.

A typical product at Home Depot is made of different materials: copper, aluminum, glass, plastic, silicon are common. Is there one 3D printer that can accomodate diverse feedstocks?

When I see a 3-D printer that can print out working spark plugs as well as staplers, I'll might regard it as a substitute for our extensive manufacturing infrastructure.

And the materials for the feedstocks would still need to be mined.

Last edited by Hop (2011-12-01 13:15:52)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#111 2011-12-02 09:58:04

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Hop has been quicker than me. You can make perfect-looking bicycles witha 3D printer - that weight 80kgs or so. With a mediocre mechanical resistance. 3D printers are crap for anything else than prototyping & marketing. Useful on earth, but not on Mars, I fear.

The shape is not the only important thing in a mechanical element. The way it is done as a deep impact upon the mechanical resistances, and therefore upon the usability of the element. In your car engine, the carter is molded, but the piston is machined. Because they have different requirements, and each process is the best adapted to the usage. We need machines, forges, and other metal-transforming elements for making efficient & reliable equipment. 3D printing sucks for our needs.



And starvation can come quick. A little damage made on the food-processing equipment, and you end up as viking Groenland. They ate their dogs, and even small birds, but it did not save them.

On Mars, you don't have a spare environment - like Groenland in the late 1300s when cooling climate cut them off norwegian trade ships. If your environment fails you, you're dead. Man-made environments are different from nature-made, but can be as vulnerable. Of course self-sufficiency is desirable for any Mars settlement(and I'm here because I believe it's doable), but it's by no way a safety guarantee. For such an outpost(and it will be an outpost for centuries, at least, bigger & bigger, but still an outpost), lack of homeland support is a great danger. As Hop said, there is no Home Depot on Mars. There is no supermarket, there is no easy mining, there is no easy access to water, soil quality for growing food is unknown. That's even tougher than Viking Groenland, as there will be no grass to feed the cows.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

Offline

#112 2011-12-02 11:44:50

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Hop- I am well aware of the complexity of  the infrastructure behind modern life.  However, Mars has several advantages when it comes to building an economy that can make a closed loop.  Of things that I can think of right now, these are:

  1. The colony can be located wherever is convenient: This minimizes transport costs.  The colony could conceivably be located within a few kilometers of significant concentrations of important source materials

  2. The colony does not need to have an economy that is 100% closed.  It is my contention that the closer you get to full closure the harder it gets to increase your degree of closure.  The things that are hardest to make can simply be imported from Earth; since these things (computers, chemical catalysts, some of the rarer metals if we can't get around their use, etc.)

  3. The colony does not need yup have an economy as complex as that of Earth.  I would expect that the Mars colony would not be a very consumerist society and while the colony was small it could be expected to have a minimum of consumer goods.  Similarly, there will be a definite pressure on manufacturers to keep to a relatively narrow suite of materials and keep to fairly simple designs where possible.  This brings me to my next point: 

  4. Unlike Earth, a mars colony will have an incentive to make things work on a smaller scale.  This has never really been so on Earth, especially not in the industrial era.  Therefore, the martian economy will likely be organized differently than Earth's. 

  5. The marian economy will be designed from scratch, probably before the   first colony is even set up.  This gives a huge advantage as different sectors of the economy will tend to interact logically and not be subject to wasteful replication of capabilities or economic instabilities caused by significant imbalances in production.

Given these advantages, plus the fact that Martian society will probably be smarter and better educated than any which came before,  as well as having an absolutely minimal proportion of dependents who do not contribute to the economy leads me to believe (in combination with having actually looked at the issues) that a basically self sufficient mars colony is entirely feasible.


-Josh

Offline

#113 2011-12-02 15:09:52

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

JoshNH4H wrote:

Hop- I am well aware of the complexity of  the infrastructure behind modern life.  However, Mars has several advantages when it comes to building an economy that can make a closed loop.  Of things that I can think of right now, these are:
The colony can be located wherever is convenient: This minimizes transport costs.  The colony could conceivably be located within a few kilometers of significant concentrations of important source materials

That colony would need to be near water. AND Copper. AND Iron. And other minerals. Get back to me when find a location close to high grade deposits of every mineral you need.

A lot of our plastics come from petroleum. The Martian base should also be close to a petroleum reservoir.

If you want several Mars bases neighboring different mineral ore bodies, then you need transportation between bases.

I see beautiful illustrations of Mars mines, underground dwellings and Mars infrastructure. But no heavy equipment. Are we sending Cat heavy equipment to Mars? As well as replacement parts for the backhoes, cranes, etc? Are these in the Mars Direct payloads? Are we going to grade roads by giving astronauts picks, shovels and rakes?

JoshNH4H wrote:

The colony does not need to have an economy that is 100% closed.  It is my contention that the closer you get to full closure the harder it gets to increase your degree of closure.

Here we agree. Almost no earth population is self sufficient. Walden Ponds are very uncommon. Most nations, cities, etc. survive by trade.

But what export does Mars have? Given a 5 km/s gravity well, launch windows each 2.14 years and 8 month trip times, an export that achieves ROI becomes extremely unlikely.

JoshNH4H wrote:

The colony does not need yup have an economy as complex as that of Earth.  I would expect that the Mars colony would not be a very consumerist society and while the colony was small it could be expected to have a minimum of consumer goods.  Similarly, there will be a definite pressure on manufacturers to keep to a relatively narrow suite of materials and keep to fairly simple designs where possible.  This brings me to my next point:

While Martians will be living spartan life styles, they will still need extensive infrastructure to keep them alive.

JoshNH4H wrote:

The marian economy will be designed from scratch, probably before the   first colony is even set up.  This gives a huge advantage as different sectors of the economy will tend to interact logically and not be subject to wasteful replication of capabilities or economic instabilities caused by significant imbalances in production.

In other words a planned economy will do better than a free market? This hasn't been demonstrated to my satisfaction. You're deviating off topic here.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#114 2011-12-02 17:55:50

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,907
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

However, we don't know what the minimum size and complexity required for an almost self-sufficient colony is. What we can get a good idea of is what we'll need to be able to produce - Stirling/Turbine engines, electric motors, batteries etc. Once we've got those listed (we had them listed, but they were lost in the Crash of '11), we can start discussing what we'll need to produce them.

I'd also suggest that an organisation, such as TMS, begin a project to find and develop the minimum sized industrial seed. It sure beat mock Mars missions, and would be a lot more fruitful.


Use what is abundant and build to last

Offline

#115 2011-12-02 17:57:58

Grypd
Member
From: Scotland, Europe
Registered: 2004-06-07
Posts: 1,879

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

When it comes down to it.

We will colonise Mars only when we send enough people that we dont just have one base but many. Each will be located next to a resource they can supply to other bases. This is the experience that we have learned from our ancestors who colonised the Americas. It is the ability to increase population that makes a succesful colonisation and bases kept in Isolation waiting for resupply will fail. All I can say to this is Roanoake and Darien.

These bases will rely certainly in the initial to middle stages on supply from the homeworld nation. But the future if that country keeps its nerve is to create another extension of itself.


Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

Offline

#116 2011-12-02 19:34:25

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Hop- I think that you're overusing the word "need," as well as being overly pessimistic in your listing of how much things cost.  For example, you talk a lot about copper.  What, specifically, is copper used in where something else could not be substituted?  Based on the applications section of Copper's Wikipedia article:

The major applications of copper are in electrical wires (60%), roofing and plumbing (20%) and industrial machinery (15%). Copper is mostly used as a metal, but when a higher hardness is required it is combined with other elements to make an alloy (5% of total use) such as brass and bronze. A small part of copper supply is used in production of compounds for nutritional supplements and fungicides in agriculture.

In wires, Aluminium is a perfectly acceptable substitute for Copper, especially over short distances.  It's pretty unlikely the colony will have any reason to transfer power over long distance (it'll be easier to just place a few more units of Concentrated Solar Thermal Power), so its relatively high (though still pretty low) resistivity will not become a problem.  Copper's use in roofing is extraneous, especially on Mars, and in piping can be replaced by a number of other materials.  I'm not sure exactly what properties are being utilized in industrial machinery, but I would suggest that they could probably be displaced by other materials, such as Steel or Aluminium, or if they're being used for hardness, synthetic Silicon Carbide or even Diamond (we would probably want to use the Chemical Vapor Deposition method as opposed to the HPHT method), or for that matter potentially even some steels.

You say that "a lot" of our plastics come from petroleum.  By "a lot," you mean the polyethylene and polypropylene.  There's nothing particularly special about polyethylene.  It's the easiest to make on Earth, and thus serves as a general purpose plastic here, but on Mars that will probably not be so.  It was lost in the crash, but there was a thread where I detailed the steps necessary to make numerous plastics other than Polyethylene from such simple feedstocks as CO2, Nitrogen, and Water (Well, in some cases Ammonia or Hydrogen gas, but to be quite frank there is only one common-sense way to make hydrogen from Water or Ammonia from Nitrogen (and Hydrogen) on Mars, those being electrolysis and the Haber process, respectively).  It should be quite possible to make Melamine_resin (which is one of the ingredients in Formica, though Formica is a composite), Silicone (as well as Silicone oils, which should find some use), and even PVC.  With more looking into the issue, I suspect that there are many polymers which could be made from Martian feedstock.

You suggest that transportation infrastructure will be extremely expensive; but will it?  Mars is very flat.  Building roads is hardly different from bulldozing the rocks out of the way and putting down transponders. 

That's what engineering is about; given that it's physically possible (it is), there's a way to do it in a reasonably economical manner.

Exports: Potentially more than you think.  I think we can very possibly achieve sufficient closure that we'll be looking at computer equipment, chemical catalysts, and medical equipment as primary imports.  As primary exports, I think we would be looking perhaps at precious metals, but primarily at intellectual property exports will be big.  Remember that Mars does not necessarily need to excel at whatever it exports, it just needs to scrape enough earth money together to pay for the few things that it needs to keep going.

Why couldn't heavy machinery be built on Mars, not by astronauts but by colonists?  Send over a hundred people and some light machinery.  Support them from Earth for a few years as they build up a heavier industrial infrastructure from lighter machinery, meanwhile grow the colony.  At about 500 people the colony will ideally become approximately self-sufficient and will be able to grow by itself.

I'm not talking necessarily about a planned vs. free market economy, but rather about how many economies in the world were very strongly influenced by infrastructure decisions that were not made considering nationwide needs or with a long-term plan for the future, but based on political goals, sometimes on shortsighted cost-cutting, on bribes or special interests.  Government planners (both national and local) have been and continue to be major factors (indeed, integral parts) of how the economies of every industrialized country work.


-Josh

Offline

#117 2011-12-02 19:59:47

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,433

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Primary goal of a colony is to survive anything else is extra and is geared towards expansion or to create a commercial enterprise to lower Mars settlement costs.

Offline

#118 2011-12-03 11:36:58

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

JoshNH4H wrote:

Hop- I think that you're overusing the word "need," as well as being overly pessimistic

One way to convince me would be to demonstrate your optimism is plausible.

Things like the Mars simulated mission fall short.

Rather than live in a tin can for years, they should plonk some people and equipment of plausible mass in northern Siberia. From this single location a handful of people would mine all the minerals they need and then use them to manufacture bulldozers, growlights, wires for power transmission, airlocks, air filters, grow food, make clothes, air filters etc.

Not only should they build a Walden pond in this hostile location, but a Walden Pond that has the infrastructure to manufacture heavy equipment, plumbing, etc..

Until you can demonstrate this, your argument is furious handwaving.



JoshNH4H wrote:

...As primary exports, I think we would be looking perhaps at precious metals,

Mars would export gold or platinum? Sorry, this business case doesn't close by a long shot. Your expense would probably exceed your revenue by three or four orders of magnitude.

JoshNH4H wrote:

but primarily at intellectual property exports will be big.

So a small population could sit down on Mars and come up with multi-trillion dollar ideas?

If the potential Mars settlers could do this on Mars surface why don't they just simply do this while they're still here on earth? This would solve the problem of funding a Mars mission.

Last edited by Hop (2011-12-03 11:37:45)


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#119 2011-12-03 14:00:26

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,907
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Google "Open Source Ecology". They're working on significantly reducing the complexity of the machinery required for modern life.

@Hop - no need to make them mine the resources and plonk them in Siberia; just give them what they could easily access on Mars and make a much easier to do experiment. It's the refining that's the main issue, after all...


Use what is abundant and build to last

Offline

#120 2011-12-03 15:03:03

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,433

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Mars simulated mission lets look at what was acomplished

_47969012_mars500_466x298.gif

MEDICAL MODULE: A 12m-long cylinder that acted as the laboratory. It was also the sickbay were a crewmember to become ill
HABITABLE MODULE: The main living quarters. The 20m-long module has beds, a galley, a social area. It also acted as the main control room
LANDING MODULE: This was only used during the 30-day landing operation. Three crewmembers visited the "surface of Mars"
UTILITY MODULE: It is divided into four compartments, to store food and other supplies, to house a greenhouse, a gym and a refrigeration unit
SURFACE MODULE: To walk across the soil and rocks of Mars, crewmembers put on Orlan spacesuits and passed through an airlock

So there is no exploration element in the mission but we can derive that from the Mars analog stations that Mars society is in charge of. What did we learn about the confined space is what went into the mission for food, water, air, power and what came out was the amount of waste. These help to define the upmass we need for a mission but more refinement is needed for the area or space that we will need to reduce to its minimum so that we can lessen the EDL requirements to make a mars mission possible.

Offline

#121 2011-12-03 15:14:41

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Terraformer wrote:

@Hop - no need to make them mine the resources and plonk them in Siberia;

To better simulate Mars' hospitable environment, it would be better to put them in Hawaii?

Terraformer wrote:

just give them what they could easily access on Mars and make a much easier to do experiment. It's the refining that's the main issue, after all...

What they could easily access on Mars is mixture of dirt and ice, also known as permafrost. Lots of that in northern Siberia.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

#122 2011-12-03 17:42:48

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,907
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Well yes, but that would probably stretch TMS's resources a bit. If it's within budget, though...


Use what is abundant and build to last

Offline

#123 2011-12-04 08:28:43

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,433

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Much of the discusion on the earlier part of page 5 was captured in the Toe hold, Foot hold threads of colonization which I am sure are being worked on. In them we did talk about what are the levels of crew, power types and amounts, as well as the insitu use to define when we are transitioning from on step to the next. Though be fore we can do any of this we need to get man there and back to prove that we can.....

Offline

#124 2011-12-12 23:28:19

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

Hop-

One way to convince me would be to demonstrate your optimism is plausible.

For example, by spending a significant proportion of my time and thought looking into the issues facing a colony and devising economical solutions to these problems in the best way that I am able?  Strangely enough, I do that.  It may come as a shock to you, but the multitude of complex issues involved in creating a self-sustaining colony cannot be addressed to meet your unnecessarily high and extremely nitpicky standard of satisfaction cannot be done in any reasonably concise post.  Or even a few very long posts. 

You demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the economics of a Mars colony.  First of all, a colony is not going to need trillions of dollars per year.  Nowhere close.  They will need to import things like computer chips, chemical catalysts, and medicines.  These are very low-mass items, and depending on what you actually want to do with them they can be relatively cheap.  I don't know where you got a figure of trillions of dollars from, but it's completely ridiculous.

Now, let's ask ourselves:  What will the economic relation be between a Mars Colony and the $74 trillion/year (PPP; larger by the time we have a Mars colony) Earth economy?  Even compared to the much smaller economy of the colony it will not be all that big.  Now, as soon as exchanges within the colony are going on in terms of money as opposed to barter or communism, I think that it makes logical sense for the Mars colony to have its own currency, totally separate from that of Earth.  This will allow the colony to control inflation in an economy very much different from that of Earth, by simply growing the money supply at a rate similar to economic growth, of course subject to some (mostly computerized?) monitoring and adjustments. 

People's wages will be paid in Mars currency.  Call it M$.  Components and transportation will be paid for in one of the Earth currencies.  Call it dollars.  Martians will use M$ to produce a good or service that they can sell in dollars.  Therefore, "turning a profit" is the wrong word to use here; Rather, the number of M$ required to obtain one dollar will be the exchange rate between Martian currency and Earth currency.  Because the vast majority of the components being imported are going to be relatively vital for the survival of the colony (relatively vital only in the sense that while the colony could do without them it would be much harder and it certainly won't be designed to deal with a sudden cut-off), the groups responsible for importing them cannot fail to turn a profit.

Now, the real question is: which activities will produce the most dollars for the least input of resources on the part of the Mars Colony (E.g., the least cost in M$)?  One activity which has a number of positive results both for Earth and Mars is the composition of art (all kinds, e.g. writing, songs, or really anything).  If done well, this would have a sale value on Earth for next to zero transport cost.  Mars will likely have its share of novelists etc. just like everyone else.   I would imagine that there would also be a number of institutions interested in renting scientific equipment on the surface of Mars.  Precious metals could also be used to obtain dollars, especially if you're talking about harvesting PGMs (Platinum Group Metals) of meteoric origin.  This depends in part on how much it costs to get from Mars to Earth, but given that Vorbit is much lower on Mars than Earth it should be fairly possible to make a single stage shuttle fairly early on.  Refuel at Phobos/Deimos and a fuel depot refueled from the Moon and your transit costs can be relatively low, certainly not on the order of current EtO costs (It is my contention that a significant part, to be honest even a majority of these costs is a result of gross inefficiency on the parts of the people building and launching the rockets. See the immense reduction in costs associated with SpaceX rockets).

This situation does not change significantly even if the Martian economy is based off some Earth currency.  However, they will have to obtain cash from Earth to keep rampant deflation from occurring as the economy and the population of the colony and of Mars grew.  This would be a huge drag on the economy (If we're looking at 10% population growth per year, plus an increase in standard of living of a couple percent per year, that's a pretty high growth rate which would really be hurt by deflation or by the need to produce goods that are sell-able on Earth to increase the cash supply by 10+% per year.  I would imagine that some Mars currency would result in any case.

The technical issues are all soluble.  There is nothing physically possible involved here and therefore there is nothing economically impossible.


-Josh

Offline

#125 2011-12-13 00:03:44

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars?

JoshNH4H wrote:

Hop-

One way to convince me would be to demonstrate your optimism is plausible.

For example, by spending a significant proportion of my time and thought looking into the issues facing a colony and devising economical solutions to these problems in the best way that I am able?

An avalanche of words demonstrates nothing.

I mean do it.

You say it's possible to take small number of people, equipment of moderate mass and establish a self sustaining, growing community in a forbidding environment.

So you and some friends should establish your own Walden pond in Siberia. Not only grow your own food, but do your own mining from resources within reach of the base. Manufacture your own plumbing. Your own backhoes. Your own grow lights. And so on.

Actually, this would be many time easier than establishing such a base on Mars.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB