New Mars Forums

louis

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 7,208

Building the Mars Economy - Vital first steps

Here are some vital first steps that will help build the Mars economy and can be undertaken within the first ten years.

1. Establish a satellite post grad campus - University of Mars (UoM) - with financial backing from an alliance of top Unis across the world e.g. Cambridge, Paris, Tokyo, Bologna and MIT. They would need to invest heavily - at least 100 million dollars up front and a continuing contribution of maybe 10 million dollars pa.

The UoM would be governed by a Senate drawn from the contributing universities under a Charter issued by the Mars Corporation.

UoM would specialise among other things in geology, astronomy, physics, solar energy and engineering. If life is discovered on Mars that would of course justify a whole department to itself. 

Space X or the Mars Corporation will receive large rent, transit and life support payments for enabling UoM to get to and live on Mars.

2. Partner with Space Agencies.  Not just NASA, but many other agencies around the world would welcome the opportunity to send astronauts to Mars. It would be much cheaper for them to get Space X to take their astronauts, rovers and science packages to Mars, instead of trying to fund that themselves. This could be worth 100 millions of dollar.

3. Establish a PV panel factory on Mars.

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tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,221

Re: Building the Mars Economy - Vital first steps

For Louis re #1

Best wishes for success with this new topic!

This post is available/reserved for an Index to Highlights of posts that may follow.

SearchTerm:Economy Mars Building

Index: Challenge: Post #3 by SpaceNut

In this post, SpaceNut provides a summary of investments likely to be required for Mars Settlement, including creating a viable economy.

It is possible that Louis and other Forum members will respond with realistic estimates of amounts needed for parts of the project, and ultimately for the whole.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,428

Re: Building the Mars Economy - Vital first steps

The main issue for mars starting is cost to get there with even current to future rockets, delivery of insitu resource processing equipment as robotics are costly, medical unknown of mars level gravity plus control of radiational exposure, life support ( in water, food, air power) and espansion of living habital area from brought to built which adds to the insitu processing equipment for construction.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,221

Re: Building the Mars Economy - Vital first steps

For Louis ... as you think about how to develop the potential of this topic ...

Yesterday, amidst all the news and punditry that flows by on Fridays (in the US for sure!) I caught a brief mention of an idea I thought worth remembering ... I ** think ** the discussion was about the (possible) influence of a government upon the economic productivity of a population.  The speaker offered an analogy to an iceberg ... the speaker likened the influence of (any ) government (in a capitalist society) to the tip of an iceberg, while the vast majority of the productivity of the society exists in the great bulk/mass of the society out of view.

I bring this up in connection with your initiative here ...

It seems reasonable to me to enlist the private sector to design all the equipment needed by Mars explorers and future settlers, and to compete for contracts to supply it.

According to my memory of reports about the American Gold Rush, the vast majority of wealth that was generated by that activity accrued to the suppliers of goods and services needed by the (would be) miners.

So I would expect the future to unfold as the Mars project gets going in earnest.

Thus, I'm hoping your topic here will attract examples of goods and services that explorers and settlers will need.

The My Hacienda topic (which itself is a branch of your Sagan City vision) is attempting to identify specializations that will be needed to sustain "first world" civilization on Mars, despite the separation necessarily occasioned by distance within the Solar System

(th)

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,221

Re: Building the Mars Economy - Vital first steps

After review of available topics in the Martian Economy Index level, I've decided to attempt to bring this one back to life with an assertion that a state-of-mind of caring about others is going to be a contributing factor for success in ** any ** economy on Mars.

Here is a possible starting point, copied from another topic:

For Calliban re #9

Thanks for your reminder of the "ability to pay" as a component of the economy.

In a Universe where people cared about each other, and where the "ability to pay" is a function of "opportunities to contribute value", the "ability to pay" would be achieved by matching capability with opportunity so that each member of the society is able to afford whatever they need, and some of what they want. 

We have an Index level for discussion of the Economy, and that is certainly a good place to discuss how society might organize itself so that individuals with a wide variety of capabilities can cooperate to achieve a good standard of living for everyone.

As things stand, it seems clear to me that the population of Earth is not doing a good job of matching capability to opportunity.

On Earth, vertical farming is competing with horizontal farming, so is at a disadvantage in some locations, but it will have NO competition on Mars, despite the rosy fantasies of some, who appear to imagine rolling fields of green houses on the Martian landscape.

(th)

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