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For Mars_B4_Moon re #25
SearchTerm:Overview by Mars_B4_Moon of economy possibilities for Mars, Solar system and Earth
(th)
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I agree that trade in minerals from Mars is unlikely to be a big element in the Mars economy apart from the scientific/collectors' trade in regolith and meteorites. Meteorites can be very valuable and will easily pay for their return to Earth. Obviously if we find easily accessible and very pure gold deposits at the surface, they may be exploitable.
There are many other ways the Mars colony can generate revenue - large revenue - during the first 20 years. These include:
providing services to Space Agencies (including housing and supporting their astronauts on Mars), providing services to Universities who will wish to set up research outposts, undertaking science experiments on behalf of spaces agencies etc, art installations (we've already seen the Japanese guys prepared to invest millions in his Dear Moon project - there will be v wealthy sculptors happy to pay for their sculpture to be the first on Mars), general and specific sponsorship (companies that sponsor the Olympics, companies like Coca Cola and Nike will be very interested in sponsoring the Mars Mission or specific exploration missions e.g. to Olypus Mons or Valles Marineris), sale of TV and photo rights, a Mars TV channel, a Mars Centre similar to the Kennedy Space Centre displaying Space X rockets and exhibits from Mars and production of Mars-related books.
The revenue from all that could easily be $20 billion per decade.
Space agencies alone will be willing to part with billions (taken as a whole), given the cost of their own not very productive space expenditures. Space agencies from countries like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India, Vietnam and elsewhere would be able to put their astronauts on Mars and beam their exploits back to their own national TV audiences. It would be a huge boost to national pride. And they could now undertake experiments on Mars at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to undertake such missions by themselves. Given NASA's enthusiams for Space X on the Moon, it seems likely NASA would be investing billions per decade in Space X enabled missions. If you could get 10 space agencies to part with an average $200 million per decade in Mars missions, that's $2 billion right off. It's probably a conservative figure. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA converted its current Mars rover missions into Space X enabled missions.
I would disagree with Zubrin when he says a Mars economy could grow by exporting minerals back to Earth, I believe a Mars colony will operate at a loss for some time, these minerals are not unique to Mars and for example many of these very same rare minerals are found on our Moon. The Lunar surface would be an easier place to drive minerals from the Moon's surface into Low Lunar Orbit and then back to Earth, you could simply fire stuff back to Earth and on Mars with its more complicated Landing and the more complex issue of a return journey from deeper space, that quick physical trade route isn't really an option.
However what is much more interesting is Mars is probably a much better place to live, it is so much better a planet for people than our Moon, it will be a much better place to have some kind of self sustaining colony. The Mars economy will probably be long long long investment, if anything if it is an 'economy' it will be a trick, a bond currency scam, ponzi scheme of sorts on Earth you have stock markets bounce up and down with share rumors, you have electronic crypto coin currency. Back on Earth I find our cycles of boom and bankrupt bust amusing, the big elites always printing their way out of a crisis. I find it interesting that Musk keeps tweeting and commenting on that Japanese dogfaced coin, he thinks Crypto might go to space and maybe one day sees some kind of Galactic stock exchange. Mars could of course become a test bed for science, new nuclear concepts, new biological engineered animal and plant science that will survive on a new planet, new places to test 'Fusion' or A.I or cyborg science or new Chemically produced and 3-D printed structures other ideas pushed by the Futurologists and Futurist Tony Stark type people of our real world and an amalgamation of all these new frontier sciences to keep a real Martian village or Mars town moving. 3D printed organs might be a thing for the new creatures and animals that start to live on Mars, new farming tech might be discovered, new terra-forming technique over hundreds of years or over a millennia. Will Mars have some kind of Dictator or Emperor, maybe so maybe not perhaps it will be some kind of 'Democratic' but its possible employees of the first colonial organization will have some Multi National Mega Corp company boss to answer to. All mining will be almost totally recycled to be put back into Mars to get Mars working, they will start mining water and CO2 for fuel, their produce and plants will feed themself not the people on Earth. Mars will be resource poor, with respect to Earth, it also gets less sunlight so it will lack the Sun resource our Earth has, maybe by this stage someone will have a Solar Cell Farm on the planet Mercury and will beam the energy across the cosmos to have the energy collected by an orbiting power-station above Mars?
Automated or 'novel' types of factory don't help too much because those very same Robots will be able to make stuff on Earth cheaper and sell it to Mars cheaper. Deuterium that is 2H or 'D' is several times more abundant on Mars but that still doesn't really make it cost effective to send it on a trade route to the Earth homeworld, they have more of it but it's only several times, when it comes to rare minerals and elements the Moon will be the more tempting near trade route for Earth. The will of course be an internal Mars economy growing once people are there, an internal settlement economy. That can run on whatever unit of currency you want...so maybe Musk is right to send all those electronic Bitcoin or Dogecoins out there. In space you could have novelty entertainment, flying tourism, amazing novelty sports, golf that goes for miles and miles and zero-G kickboxing but these could be media entertainment fads. There is also the trouble of sending new science rock samples home as valuable, the scientific value of each new sample brought back diminishes as time moves on.
The Covid thing and global lockdowns with corona virus suddenly put a picture out there of what was important in society, the Olympics and Hollyweird became less important for people. Farmers making food produce is important, your medical supply is important, scientists and engineers will be the firsts of Mars are likely to be in the hospitality industry, the guys moving stuff, guys back on Earth you have shipping stuff by Trucks, some do it on boats, some use aircraft, some take produce to places using donkeys...these delivery logistic shipping people will be important. There is a theory that Mars could become part of a chain, another piece in a bunch of economic blocks stacked one on top of another, the Low tech products from Mars sold for the asteroid belt and other places for example. The benefits and seeds grown from colonization itself could be a factor, the Physical and Material sciences, the Medical research on an alien world that those benefits is a possibility. If Mars stars to get spacecraft from Canada, Japan, Russian, Europe, China the United States, people from all these places will it become some kind of "legal black hole" or become a place of scary Frankenstein-ish experiments without jurisdiction that bans them, modified humans etc Even the US Space Force recently admitting that one, saying soon humans will be augmented. The new engineered super-human the uber-man if they are skilled and trained perhaps a plethora of opportunities will be awaiting them at Mars? Maybe a Mars colony won't be all about robots and engineered maybe, perhaps will return to older tradition for example Amish community in the United States manufactures furniture by hand they have their own unique internal economics. When a Martian outpost is established others might start to argue then why not Titan, why not Jupiter's Moon Europa by that stage hopefully we will have become a multi-planetary species and which ever group or culture did colonization they will reap its benefits.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Things made out of mars materials that have gem stones or meteorites with in the settings could fetch a high value for exporting to earth.
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One question is exports from Mars. Lithium is required for batteries. As we move to battery-electric vehicles, we have a shortage of lithium. And lithium extraction is environmentally damaging. The richest source of lithium on Earth are salt flats in South America. Lithium exists in igneous rocks, but in very low concentration. Weathering of rocks leaches alkali metals and alkali earth metals out of igneous rocks, hydrating the minerals, turning them into clay. We're used to sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. These become salts in sea water. But there's also lithium. Nature has concentrated it for us. Mars has an entire ocean that dried up. We will mine salt deposits on Mars for potassium salt, for fertilizer for greenhouses. There could be a layer of lithium salts. When a large body of water like a sea or ocean completely dries up, the salt precipitates out in layers: sodium chloride (table salt), potassium chloride (salt substitute), calcium chloride (road salt). The lithium deposit in South America is a salt flat, it's a layer of lithium salt. Not pure lithium, but concentrated. Will we find lithium salts on Mars?
Also note: these metals combine with chlorine, but also combine with bromine. Bromine salts have already been found on Mars. So lithium chloride and lithium bromide might be found.
Will lithium be an export from Mars to Earth?
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