Corporate Government

Terraformer · 2021-11-01 15:23:13

My point with Svalbard is that, like it, Mars will have limited ability to support non-workers at the start... and it will be a very long while before they reach a point where they can. Hopefully by the time the first settlers are retiring.

The US military has age and health restrictions, does it not? You mentioned submariners before.. Not exactly a job that the average john can get into, is it. It's not just about being smart enough to do the work they need - if you can't handle the cramped conditions and close contact with others, they're not sending you down there. I would go mad if I was crew, and that's why the US Navy would screen me out and send me somewhere more suitable (probably ONI).

Eventually, should the colonies succeed, people closer to the norm will be able to move there. *But only if they can find a settlement that is willing to take them in!* It will still be a case of no job no ticket, and I don't know how many jobs will actually be available to regular joes at that point. Some, but where near as many as will be available back on Terra. It's going to skew highly educated until such a time as the planet is (partially) terraformed and the cities are bustling metropolises.

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 17:18:35

Terraformer,

I still think you're selling yourself short.

The US military has age and health restrictions because the primary function of the US military is to kill people and break things. Medical and military science has determined that being young and healthy reduces the risk of dying while the enemy tries to kill you. Acceptable ages are 16-35 or 39 or so. I joined the Navy after turning 17, and yes, I underwent extensive and routine medical, psychological, and physical fitness tests. Waivers are granted for entry into the military on a case-by-case basis, because health and physical fitness is not always a function of age. Nuance matters. There are some 50 year olds who are much healthier than some 19 year olds, and most 25+ year olds are better psychologically prepared, so we take people who can pass all tests and deal with all punishment. It's training and conditioning over time that makes a real difference.

That said, there are no such health and fitness tests for dependents of military personnel. The Navy never took anybody's kids and made them pass a PRT, unless they were also part of the JROTC, because we're training those specific kids to follow in our footsteps. Without the kids, you get no more enlisted and officers. If you want to perpetuate the institution of the US military, and we do, then you train and develop the next generation to do what we have done. That implies we must have young trainees to educate and develop, so women and children are either part of the deal, or there is no deal. That's not even questioned by the US military, and hasn't been for longer than I've been alive.

louis · 2021-11-01 17:29:54

I read an interesting article in the (UK) Spectator recently about how this town has grown up on the African Savannah in Kenya. 30 years ago there was nothing there. There were a couple of brick pillars, built by an old colonial farmer as the entrance point to his farm - and the locals likened them to Bull's Horns. That's now the name of the settlement. The Bull's Horns became a place lorries stopped off and picked up people wanting to travel some distance. Then shops grew up around the stopping point. Soon the shopkeepers were building homes for their families to live in. Next the politicians got involved building schools and the like...Now it is a settlement of some 30,000 people, all within three decades.

Obviously on Mars, development will take place in a different way but science research, universities, media companies and so on will be performing the equivalent of selling potatoes by the roadside...

RobertDyck wrote:

St. John's Newfoundland also had whalers from Basque. This was a time before invention of plastics or petroleum products. Whale oil was used for lamps, whale bone was carved to make products, etc. There was a need for support so eventually carpenters and blacksmiths set up shop. Bakers made bread. The fishing camp grew to become a village, then a town, then a city. With all the support services of a city.
France established a colonies in Quebec, Acadia, and Louisiana. They trapped animals for fur, and harvested tree sap to make maple syrup that they called "sugar". Certain types of tree were harvested for timber, white oak and "live oak", because that special type of wood was very strong, required for military combat ships. "Live oak" only grows in southern North America: along the Atlantic coast from southeast Virginia to Florida, west along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana and Mexico, and across the southwest to California. The name "live oak" is from the fact the tree grows year round, it doesn't become dormant in winter. It only grows in warmer climates. Fur trade became big business. Quebec doesn't have live oak, but does have white oak, and did have fur and maple syrup. Quebec colonies were required to provide food locally, including wheat fields using seed grain brought from Europe, and meat from the animals trapped for fur. Most of the colonists were men, Quebec had to periodically send more colonists. Eventually the king of France was tired of having to send more colonists to Quebec, so he sent a shipment of women, young prostitutes from the streets of France. His orders were to get married and have children so Quebec will raise their own men, so he doesn't have to spend money to send more men. The men were quite pleased at a shipment of young single women looking for husbands.

SpaceNut · 2021-11-01 17:39:12

Ships carrying woman were considered bad luck early on in ocean voyages. I have seen girls that would wreck me so its not a question of what sex to send but fitness to perform tasks.

Just because you send the " top 10% (120+ IQ)." does not mean they can think there way out of a box. You need a combination of skills to go with that brain that can reason through a problem as there is nothing but what you have to solve it with you at any point in time when you are on mars.

The talk of living off the land only happens once you have structures to support the activity unlike earth we are going to need energy to be able to leverage to all things that we need beyond the ship and stuff that we bring. Which makes the research islands perfect for the learning of how to do with less.

louis · 2021-11-01 17:43:59

Interesting discussion!

I think for the first 3 or so decades the Mars population is going to be "of a type" ie fit, healthy, intelligent and probably well educated in STEM subjects. Whatever they may say, pregnancy, significant disability and depressive traits will be discouraged to the max. There will however be a good gender/race balance because Space X/Musk will be able to pick and choose from the brightest and best all around Planet Earth.

But once human settlement on the planet has established its foothold then what? Musk makes it sound like anyone will be able to buy a ticket to Mars and settle there. Have no illusions, as I have pointed out before, the nature of settlers will change dramatically as a result should he follow through on that. Should Musk be true to his word (I obviously have some doubts) we'll find a very large number of (ex PLA) Chinese "students" suddenly finding the wherewithal to pay for the ticket. Pakistani and Saudi billionaires will stump up many millions to send their co-religionsts there and no doubt Scientologists and others will want to get on board. I am sure Mr Putin could spare some Roubles to make sure there is a strong Russian presence on Mars as well. Even DPRK might want to get in on the act.

Essentially the Musk plan guarantees exporting hell to Mars.

I strongly oppose Musk's loopy plan and would prefer to see a strong cultural test applied to all potential migrants ensuing their respect for free speech, free thought, gender equality, old democratic norms and so on. We should be exporting the best from Earth to Mars, not the worst.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-01 18:15:26

As the unelected self-declared sovereign of the planet-wide federal government of Mars, I call your arguments bovine manure.

The role of the federal government is to ensure municipalities and corporations do not go to war with each other. And to ensure no one establishes restrictions on the citizens of Mars. Federal laws are minimal. If you want to engage in social engineering, create some sort of paradise, you can found a municipality and do it there.

No, there won't be any qualifications to go to Mars. If you can afford a ticket, you can go. Period. You must agree to be a citizen of Mars, and must agree to be subject to the federal laws of Mars. There aren't a lot of federal laws, so not hard to do.

That said there will not be any welfare system on Mars. If you don't have a job, the federal government has a job bank and a job training program. The job bank is just a database on a website where employers advertise jobs, and those seeking work advertise their availability. No restrictions, the federal government will maintain the website at their expense, but they won't vet employers or employees.

Job training: if you have difficulty finding a job, you can apply. The program will give you an aptitude test. That doesn't test whether you have the knowledge, it tests aptitude. Then they will arrange interviews with employers. If an employer chooses to accept you, at that point you are accepted into the program. From that point on you will be given a dorm room at the training facility, and cafeteria food. You will be given job training for the job you applied for and the employer agreed to. Once you graduate, the employer who agreed to hire you is required to do so. Cost of the job training, including your dorm room and meals, are considered to be a student loan. Payments for that loan will be deducted off your paycheque until the loan is completely repaid. The employer is prohibited from firing you; however, the employer could assign you to the nastiest jobs the company has. You just got hired as a miner and completed job training operating a pneumatic drill and placing explosive charges in a rock face of an underground mine with nothing more than Mars ambient atmosphere. And you screw up, even though you passed the training, on the job you prove to be a screw up. You could be assigned to empty and clean the outhouses (porta-potty / latrine), and scrub the septic tank... from the inside. Trust me; you want to do a good job. The only way an employer could completely fire you, is if the employer pays off the remaining balance of your student loan. If the employer completely refuses to hire you when you graduate, the employer will be charged a fine. Remember, your training only began because an employer agreed to hire you, so changing his mind is a breach of contract. You could call it a penalty fee instead of a fine, but you get the idea. So this program will be self-funding.

If someone has no homestead and no ability to pay bills (apartment rent, groceries, etc) whether through employment or other source of money? And can’t get accepted by the job training program? There’s the next ship back to Earth. All trips from Earth to Mars come with a free trip back to Earth. Anyone born on Mars will be eligible for a free trip back to Earth. That way there's no need for welfare.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-01 18:34:05

For RobertDyck ....

You're going to need a devoted gang of (ahem) highly motivated personnel who obey your every command, to impose your concept on any population.

You're going to need a devoted protection force, to insure no one who might be dissatisfied with your rule gets anywhere near you.

How are you going to recruit this loyal force, and how are you going to keep them motivated?

There are autocrats on Earth today who seem to have worked out the procedures.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2021-11-01 18:39:35

louis wrote:

I strongly oppose Musk's loopy plan and would prefer to see a strong cultural test applied to all potential migrants ensuing their respect for free speech, free thought, gender equality, old democratic norms and so on. We should be exporting the best from Earth to Mars, not the worst.

What if a group of Mormons want to establish New Salt Lake, complete with mandatory membership in the Mormon church, and polygamy? I have suggested such a group could establish a municipality on Mars. With enough people living there, they could become a city. A city-state.

What if a group of fundamentalist Christians want to establish a municipality with traditional gender roles?

What if a group from United Arab Emirates want to establish a municipality with Sharia law and Sharia courts, following UAE culture and legal structure? I mention them because UAE has already sent a mission to Mars.

I'm suggesting each municipality could be a social experiment. One reason for restricting sub-sovereign entities to a single municipality is to prevent the surface of Mars from being claimed. Mars is a planet, with as much surface area as all the dry land of Earth combined. If we start claiming vast tracts, that will be taken very quickly. But restricting sub-sovereign entities to a single municipality, the surface is vast, allowing many such city-states.

Any "test" is biased toward a certain society structure. I'm saying no such test. The only test is if you can afford a ticket.

By the way, all new settlers will arrive at the city established by the corporation that owns the interplanetary transport ships. Arrival on Mars will be greeted by advertising: Come work for The Company! Free Apartment! (in a company dormitory) Free utilities! Free healthcare! Free meals in the company cafeteria! (only Company employees allowed) Free transportation to work! (corridor to walk down for office workers, pressurized bus for miners) And when (if) you save enough money, you can build your own homestead in the outback to become completely independent! (Equipment, tools and supplies at the company store. At company prices.)

RobertDyck · 2021-11-01 18:54:29

tahanson43206 wrote:

You're going to need a devoted gang of (ahem) highly motivated personnel who obey your every command, to impose your concept on any population.

United States military doesn't appear to have any qualms obeying orders from their Commander in Chief.

Or I could borrow a technology from Elon Musk: Neuralink
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louis · 2021-11-01 19:08:02

Well this is a very important debate. We should have this debate.

You are saying "What if?" Well I am saying apply the cultural test.

You are saying: "I don't want a cultural test. I want a money test."

But what does that mean? Clearly it means whoever has the billions wins. And when we look around the world today, who is it who can supply the billions (apart from Musk himself): corrupt Russian oligarchs, Saudi billionaires, Gulf billionaires, Iran, the CCP regime in China etc etc...these are not the people I want to lead Mars colonisation.

I personally think Musk is way more intelligent, foresightful and devious than people realise. I think he may well have gamed this already. Just because he said it was his plan doesn't mean it is his plan.

For one thing when he was giving the impression Californians were going emigrate to Mars en masse, he was a lot poorer. He now has billions more to pour into Mars colonisation. I think he will come to see the error of his ways and modify the plan by, in effect applying a cultural test that he can actually subsidise from his personal wealth.

This cultural test can be based on the UN Charter of Human Rights essentially - properly interpreted, not in the way the CCP or Putin or the Saudis interpret it.

If you want to export religious lunatics, communist fanatics, cultists and assorted maniacs to Mars then stick with your "money to Mars" approach.

RobertDyck wrote:

louis wrote:
I strongly oppose Musk's loopy plan and would prefer to see a strong cultural test applied to all potential migrants ensuing their respect for free speech, free thought, gender equality, old democratic norms and so on. We should be exporting the best from Earth to Mars, not the worst.
What if a group of Mormons want to establish New Salt Lake, complete with mandatory membership in the Mormon church, and polygamy? I have suggested such a group could establish a municipality on Mars. With enough people living there, they could become a city. A city-state.
What if a group of fundamentalist Christians want to establish a municipality with traditional gender roles?
What if a group from United Arab Emirates want to establish a municipality with Sharia law and Sharia courts, following UAE culture and legal structure? I mention them because UAE has already sent a mission to Mars.
I'm suggesting each municipality could be a social experiment. One reason for restricting sub-sovereign entities to a single municipality is to prevent the surface of Mars from being claimed. Mars is a planet, with as much surface area as all the dry land of Earth combined. If we start claiming vast tracts, that will be taken very quickly. But restricting sub-sovereign entities to a single municipality, the surface is vast, allowing many such city-states.
Any "test" is biased toward a certain society structure. I'm saying no such test. The only test is if you can afford a ticket.
By the way, all new settlers will arrive at the city established by the corporation that owns the interplanetary transport ships. Arrival on Mars will be greeted by advertising: Come work for The Company! Free Apartment! (in a company dormitory) Free utilities! Free healthcare! Free meals in the company cafeteria! (only Company employees allowed) Free transportation to work! (corridor to walk down for office workers, pressurized bus for miners) And when (if) you save enough money, you can build your own homestead in the outback to become completely independent! (Equipment, tools and supplies at the company store. At company prices.)

Last edited by louis (2021-11-01 19:09:16)

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-01 20:02:55

The discussion in this topic mentioned submarine crew selection and training so i was interested to find this article in the news feed:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/th … d=msedgntp

The four-month test is offered about three times every two years, and evaluates a submariner's potential to command their own boat. Four to six officers typically participate in each cohort.
Much of it takes place in simulators at Naval Base Clyde, so that the teacher leading the course can put candidates through complicated scenarios with multiple ships and more easily raise the operational tempo, Breckenridge said.
Four weeks of the course are spent at sea aboard a nuclear-powered attack submarine in coordination with the UK's biannual Joint Warrior exercise, held east of Scotland.
"There's just enough units out there that we can use as adversaries that we can keep it busy for the students and give them a really good test," he said.
At sea, the teacher will gradually ramp up the pressure and step back bit by bit to allow the candidates to deal with the increased stress on their own.
What it takes
<snip>
There have been years where the pass rate was below 50%, which could lead to a dearth of available, command-ready officers several years down the line. On those occasions, former commanding officers have been brought back for a second tour.
Right now, the service has "just enough people through" to fill the required executive-officer slots, Breckenridge said.
Despite that balancing act, the course has to maintain its standards, Breckenridge said. "If you lower the standards, you're going to get a lesser standard at sea."
Vivienne Machi is an award-winning reporter based in Stuttgart, Germany. Her writing has appeared in outlets including Foreign Policy, Defense News, the Counter, and Via Satellite. Twitter: @VivienneMachi
Read the original article on Business Insider
Continue reading

The training and qualification process are probably similar in the submarine fleets of other Nations.

While this article is about commander selection, we know from posts by kbd512 that enlisted crew and junior officers receive comparable testing and training, adjusted for their positions.

(th)

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 20:21:01

RobertDyck,

Some of the offices and supply bases we maintain around the world provide very low cost (not free) meals to our employees. Here in the US, it's all commercially supplied, except for very remote places like Alaska. The meals come out of your paycheck, but it's a trivial amount and most of our employees opt to get their meals through the company. We have medical staff, but always send our people to hospitals unless something like a natural disaster prevents that from happening. The meals we had in Mexico, for example, were very high quality and very low cost, and the people working there preferred to get their meals from the base, so that's saying something.

All meals come out of your paycheck in the Navy. Shipboard food quality varied greatly from ship-to-ship, as well as base-to-base. Many of the officers preferred to eat in the enlisted mess, because there was a greater pool of money for meals there. The Chiefs always ate in the Chief's mess. The Captain and Admiral had their own chefs assigned to them, so unless dignitaries were aboard or there was a meeting with the ship's officers, they pretty much always ate alone. We tried not to, but we threw a lot of food away, so it should go without saying that very shrewd food service management and saving of leftovers is likely required for a spaceship. The messing officers did a lot of figuring to try to predict how much of each food item would be consumed.

kbd512 · 2021-11-01 22:48:36

tahanson43206,

If you're in a position that requires mastery of the subject matter, such as operating a nuclear reactor or conning a ship or operating a computer network, then no matter what the book says about what a passing score is, those appointed over you will accept nothing less than on-command regurgitation of the correct operating procedure or course of action. Testing doesn't stop after you attain a qualification, either- it's never-ending. That's how you take ordinary people and make them capable of fixing any problem, no matter what happens. The more they expect you to know, the more elaborate the testing becomes.

If you can complete a task in 30 seconds, then next time it has to be 29 seconds or less. With practice, times are expected to improve. Unless it's a team event like a fire fighting or seamanship drill, then it's a competition with yourself. Any success or failure is all down to how you performed as an individual. It's different for officers. They're always judged on the success of their team. If you did well on a fire drill, then next time it will be a fire drill combined with a chemical weapons attack. Basically, it's test-to-failure, identify why you failed, and try again. Officers organize the chaos, the enlisted men and women provide the technical skills to fix specific problems during the chaos, as well as general problems (fire / flooding / electrical failure / enemy attack).

Despite all of their education and training, officers do not fix technical problems. They need to understand the problems and apply appropriate personnel resources and priority / time management. A lack of technical skill is seen as a failure of senior enlisted, because the entire purpose of the enlisted corps is providing technical services. A lack of managerial skill is seen as a failure of officers to provide leadership (set the team to work solving specific problems) and task prioritization (determining which shipboard casualty poses the greatest threat). For example, I trust that our officers know a fire is the most important problem to solve and they trust that I know how to put it out, if I'm provided with the required equipment.

Regarding testing, there are 3 parts to every qualification. The first is a written exam. This is administered first. If you fail this, then they won't bother with the other two parts of the test. The second part is an oral board, normally 3 to 5 qualified personnel, rarely more than that. There are no notes or other materials allowed unless you're explaining how to use a piece of equipment like a sextant to the board (they will provide the sextant and any data cards used with the equipment), and you're normally standing at attention while answering rapid-fire questions. They're looking for confidence in what you state as much as a correct answer. If you seem unsure or they sense that your knowledge is lacking, they'll keep drilling down into the subject matter until they figure out where your knowledge ends or they're confident that you actually understand what you've been taught. This part of the test is somewhat subjective, but is pass / fail after a brief discussion amongst the board members, because you're asked to explain a concept or procedure in your own words. From what I've observed, fails are due to a lack of in-depth knowledge due to a failure to study properly. There are classes on how to study for tests, key points are always emphasized by instructors, and they will smack the chalk board or stamp their foot or reiterate to let you know it's important. The third and final portion of the test is a practical demonstration of skills. A real world scenario is selected as the test subject matter. Normally this is administered by a proctor and observer, and it's a timed demonstration of skills.

Some of the practical problems can be pretty esoteric, but all have actually been encountered during fleet operations, so everything you encounter is very much reality-based. Most students, to include myself, find this to be the most stressful part of the test. Sometimes these events can go on all day or over several days if the subject matter is complex enough. One of my practical tests included building an entire network from scratch, demonstrating that it functioned properly, then having the network sabotaged by the instructors, and subsequently repaired by the trainee within a specified time limit. That process took two days. The reactor tests go on over the course of a week or more, for example. Normally you're allowed 1 sheet of paper or 1 flashcard containing mathematical formulas / software commands / etc and a notepad or logbook to take notes on what you've done. It's expected that you maintain crib notes and logbooks while working in the fleet. Some tests actually require specific logbook entries. IIRC, many research scientists also maintain notebooks on what they've done.

From bootcamp onwards, you will literally fill notebooks. This is one aspect of what the Navy emphasizes, which is attention to detail. Details actually do matter to the operation of complex machines and tasks. Pen and paper is used, because handwritten notation still works when computers fail.

Regarding repair, most land-based organizations will trash things like circuit boards if they fail in some minor way. The Navy generally repairs them, unless they've been outright destroyed. This is especially true of avionics, due to the expense and limited availability of the circuit boards. The same is true of engines. It's almost unheard of to junk an entire jet engine. Anything that can be salvaged is saved and reused, because the labor exists to repair / recondition the components. We have, or at least did have, compartments on the larger ships that are one step shy of a chip fab, for example, and the education / training / diagnostics equipment to evaluate failures. They wear bunny suits in those rooms. I've seen tiny capacitors, transistors, and chips replaced, and that's perfectly normal. They'll spend an entire day repairing a single board and think nothing of it. We do carry spares for immediate fixes, but the repaired board becomes the spare after it's tested. I have no clue about what they do now, though. Maybe avionics are cheap now, who knows.

Similarly, we had guys who would fabricate new aircraft skins or replace corroded pipes or rebuild electric motors if they had the metal on hand. It's a matter of labor. If you have the time, tools, and materials, you can save a bunch of money by not purchasing what you can make. This is very important on Mars. Having multiple skills is even better. Having a couple of well-developed skills and good personal / communications skills is golden. I would rather take a good metal worker who gets along with most people, rather than the absolute best metal worker who is a royal pain to deal with, because there are very few situations where the absolute pinnacle of technical skill will be a determining factor. Working and playing well with others is always required.

Commercial food services probably purchase bread. We have no shortage of labor, so we make bread from scratch. Flour / powdered eggs / sugar / water is much cheaper than loaves of bread, and won't get smashed flat during transport. We'd get commercial bread in port, but once underway stocking that much bread is a non-starter. If you're in Asia, you eat a lot more rice than bread, because rice is cheap there. The cooks like rice, because it's easier to prepare and can be mixed with other vegetables and meats. In the states, rice is not as easy to come by, for whatever reason, so you eat more bread. We also take the boxes of meat rejected by the prisons, which saves us money and provides more protein. A poor quality steak is better than no steak. Tenderizing and seasoning goes a long way. Fish of any quality is actually surprisingly expensive compared to chicken, but we also ate a lot of fish.

Anyway, I am 100% confident that we could take Terraformer, impart knowledge and skills, and she'd do just fine. Everybody has fears, everybody has weak points, everybody has stuff they hate doing, and yet, almost anyone is trainable. Admittedly, some take more effort than others. So long as they never give up, most other weaknesses can be fixed. It's almost impossible to figure out who will or won't give up, except through testing. There will be no perfection because humans aren't perfect. Excellence is achievable. You can't have people who are mentally retarded in charge of life-and-death functions, but that doesn't mean they're useless, either. Around 10% of society is at or below what we consider the cutoff for significant mental retardation. There still has to be a place for them, because they're still part of society, like it or not. We can't have an overabundance of those people on Mars, and no, initial missions simply can't have crews who are less than fully capable, but we're wasting our time on this "super-grade" mentality. Those people are few and far between. There are no menial jobs aboard a ship or constructing a base of operations, either. A janitor is every bit as important as the Captain, in different ways. The military doesn't subscribe to the "this job is more important than that job" mentality. Any poorly executed job will garner feedback, as it should. A poor meal or a poor cleaning job is a morale issue. Nobody likes bad meals or dirty ships. Work ethic always matters.

We're going to go to Mars with whomever is willing, who never gives up, who we have properly trained. That stuff actually matters. Always being surrounded by highly educated and high-IQ personnel, while certainly desirable, is not necessary and unrealistic.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 01:40:30

kbd512,

You keep using navy experience. I suggested one perk offered to employees of the Company will be free cafeteria meals. There's a couple reasons. As I explained in the presentation about Newfoundland, the reason for success is the settlement was food independent from day one. As long as you expect government run supply ships to cross an ocean in the age of wooden ships with canvas sails, the colony will fail. We are now discussing Mars. I am am saying as long as you expect food to be transported across space from Earth, your colony or settlement will fail. Something will go wrong, if government is involved then politics will interfere with supply missions. If a corporation is in control, there will still be supply problems. Remember the ship that blocked the Suez Canal for how long? So on Mars, establishing local production of food is absolutely critical. It's literally do or die.

Your navy experience has shown you certain things I haven't seen. My work experience has shown me things that you haven't seen. In software development, many successful companies have a cafeteria for company employees. The reason is so they don't have to worry about food, and don't have to leave the building. Computer software development often involves very long hours of highly focused work. The computer industry changes so fast that any new software must be completed quickly, before the underlying technology it's based upon becomes obsolete. I've read about working conditions in highly successful companies, and I've worked in places that are less than successful. One project was the Year 2000 project for Manitoba Telecom Services. They were a private company at the time, but used to be government owned. Management still had the mindset of government. Absolutely ever software project there was late. Long story short, the problems I pointed out in 1998 never were fixed. Their billing software did fail. Nobody in the province got a phone bill in January year 2000. The company had save enough money in case that happened, but the entire point of the year 2000 project was to ensure it wouldn't. The company sent out bills that that month, but they were a month late.

Life support and food production on Mars is not something you can run like a project of MTS. Personnel have to focus, and their focus must be getting the job done, not which middle manager gets a promotion or the size of a project manager's budget, or number of personnel in some make-work project. I did not say all of Mars would have company cafeterias, just the one large Company. Initially facilities of that Company will be all there is on Mars. Then the city will grow, and private entrepreneurs will establish restaurants, grocery stores, and farms.

One reason this is not like the navy, is you can't just buy food. All food must be produced on Mars. And that food production must be set up very quickly. So variety will be limited at first. It's not just about management of money. You said the enlisted mess had a larger pool of money. But on Mars, you have to build greenhouses. You have to treat Mars dirt to produce arable soil. Perchlorates, no soil nitrogen, etc. Yes, some food production will be aquaponics, but that cannot grow quickly, soil greenhouses can. The settlement must be built by a large ice deposit such as a glacier. That must be harvested and water processed to produce vast quantities of potable water. Greenhouses must be integrated with sewage processing. Another reason for soil greenhouses, because they won't require integration with sewage processing, while hydroponics or aquaponics will. I listed some advanced life support technology for the Large Ship, that will have to be built for Mars as well. All this will result in limited groceries at first. So like it or not, you will have limited raw material for cooks to work with. Yet the food must be nutritious with balanced nutrition. I'm saying personnel won't have a lot of food options at first. As the population of Mars grows, that variety will grow. While selection is limited, you may as well have a cafeteria with limited menu options.

As a general principle, anything worth doing has major reasons. You can't say any one reason is the "real" reason, they're all the real reason. The company cafeteria that I described means workers can focus on their job, instead of distraction of meals. It also means nutritious food can be prepared with highly limited production capacity.

Terraformer · 2021-11-02 06:09:15

I struggle to imagine a transport company selling a ticket to someone who doesn't already have somewhere to stay on Mars. Widespread spaceflight needs certain rules, and one of those rules is going to be that you bear responsibility for keeping your passengers/crew/settlers alive until you can discharge them to another competent authority. So if they don't have somewhere to go when you get them to Mars, you're going to be on the hook for keeping them alive until a return window opens up.

Which means either (1) they have enough money to have already paid the lease on an apartment plus living costs, or (2) they've found a polis that is willing to take them on, perhaps for a 2 year probationary period (if they aren't a fit, they can return home once the window opens). Otherwise, they don't get to buy a ticket. Mars is not America (and even America had strict processing of immigrants). Don't expect Mars to be easier to emigrate to than a modern developed country.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-02 07:29:10

For Terraformer re Post in another topic ...

While I agree that conditions for raising families would encourage groups to assemble in towns or cities over time, I think that there will be plenty of incentive for individuals and small teams to set up remote outposts to secure and to exploit resources. That seems (as I recall from various readings) to have been a pattern throughout history on Earth.

It seems to me that there ** is ** a scenario in which the vision of RobertDyck (people arriving without a job) seems reasonable .... we have it already on Earth .. If a traveler arrives with sufficient resources (ie, credit) they can rent accommodation, pay for air and water and food, and just visit the settlement for a while.

Under those conditions, a leisurely search for a job would be possible.

Such a person might even become one of those who pays for equipment to set up a habitat at a remote location to explore resource potential.

I think that the vision of RobertDyck, of people showing up with no reserves is unwise at best.

The fact that it is quite common on Earth doesn't make it any less unwise....

(th)

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 11:53:59

Then you don't understand what I said. What I wrote makes it sound as if anyone can go, including someone who doesn't have any means to support himself once he arrives. And making it sound like that is on purpose. But then in another paragraph I point out the catch. If you arrive without any resources, you can get a job with the Corporation. The Corporation or The Company must build a city that can make all the supplies necessary to operate the interplanetary transport ship. And the city must be self-sufficient. Arrive with nothing? Get a job with the Company. Advertising makes the Company sound very attractive, but the hidden catch is your pay rate really isn't that good. And supplies have to be purchased at the Company store, at Company prices. Congratulations, you just volunteered to be an exploited worker.

If someone wants to build products in a homestead in outback, and compete with the Company store, then great! Please do! Manufacture goods that are higher quality, lower prices, or both! Please do! The Company gets its profits by selling tickets to passengers on the Large Scale Colonization Ship. Did you notice your ticket included fine print granting the Company the right to use your store and your image for advertising back on Earth? Without paying you anything? Read the fine print. Come to Mars! Be like Joe Blow! He set up a homestead in the outback, is now manufacturing spacesuit helmets that out-compete the Company factory on Mars. The Company has shut down their production line of helmets because everyone buys from Joe Blow! Joe is a success! Thriving on Mars, building additions to his homestead with indoor swimming pool, hot tub, and no one can tell him what to do! Buy now, tickets available from your local ticket seller.

On the other hand, if you restrict who goes to Mars, then those restrictions will be manipulated so that *YOU* cannot go. Ever! It doesn't matter who you are or how hard you work, you will never be allowed. Period. Should I recount the story of my experience in university?

Terraformer · 2021-11-02 12:39:11

So, a welfare state. Well, a job guarantee. Wonderful. The perfect start to a new world. Classic frontier.

Robert, your plan a complete non-starter. Mars is not only not America, it is not the Grand Banks. Those fisherman *had a product they could produce that had a market already waiting for them*. If no-one ate fish, they would have never gone there.

You know who will go to Mars? Governments, through their various science research agencies. America spends $350 million on supporting its Antarctic research program. How much will they be willing to pay for a base on Mars, especially if other countries are also doing so? Once they are there, do you really think they're going to tolerate the Mars Development Consortium, of whom they are the sole customers, declaring sovereignty over the entire planet?

And hey, the only things restricting who can go to Mars will be whether you have something to offer a polis that makes it worth taking you in, or having enough money that it doesn't matter.

But how many people have $250k for a ticket anyway? Musk's plan is for the upper middle class. Spaceflight is expensive.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 12:54:46

Any plan that restricts space to government is a "complete non-starter", to use your term. Not only is this elitist and exclusive, but government has demonstrated time and again that they're incompetent. As I said, government will try to ship food from Earth. This will result in delays or cancellation of shipments. Without food, those on Mars (scientists by your post) will starve to death.

I deliberately tried to skew the scenario so the Corporation can make profit. The reason is we won't ever EVER get Mars settlement by government. This plan has to be attractive to investors who have multiple billions of dollars to invest. As I said before, budget to develop the Airbus A380 was larger than a single year budget for NASA. Private money is available, the catch is it has to be profitable. But if you want government in control, it'll never be profitable. You could scam NASA for money the way traditional military contractor like Boeing or Lockheed-Martin have done, but that also means you'll never get to Mars.

Terraformer · 2021-11-02 13:08:22

I deliberately tried to skew the scenario so the Corporation can make profit.

That should tell you all you need to know. Reality won't rig itself in your favour in such a way.

I have laid out my suggestion for how things might go before, but I'll recap:
- cost to space is lowered
- cislunar infrastructure is built up, we get orbital depots, spacecraft improved
- this massively brings down the cost to reach Mars, at which point we get a mission
- governments will want to establish bases, because governments like waving flags
- this provides an opening for the private sector space companies to support these missions
- after a decade or so, we have learned how to live on Mars, at which point a private colony is established

How much money is spent annually on maintaining Antarctic bases? Must be at least a billion dollars. Could we see $10 billion/year spent on Mars, if it buys more than a flags an footprints mission? I think so. As GW has pointed out before, the government paying the way for something which later becomes economically viable isn't an uncommon pattern in history.

kbd512 · 2021-11-02 13:16:20

RobertDyck,

I'm fine with greenhouses, but I think you'll find that aeroponics produces the most food in the least amount of physical volume, and it's not even close. More importantly, it permits another massive reduction in terms of water usage over soil-based agriculture or even aquaponics. The fact that it requires a little more plastics is less of a hurdle than creating more pressurized space and processing / storing more water. If you need 100 gallons of water to grow a given amount of food using traditional agriculture with soil-planted crops, then you need 5 gallons of water to grow food using aeroponics. No matter how cheap the greenhouse materials are, nor whether or not the regolith-turned-soil can even support crops from the very beginning, the less pressurized space and ice you need to melt and store for use in agriculture, the simpler the task of supplying enough food for everyone to eat, to say nothing of the energy requirements for producing the materials.

The American diet dictates a land use of 2.67 acres of land per person per year. A vegetarian diet still requires 0.35 acres of land per person per year. A mere 0.35 acres per person is not a practical amount of greenhouse space to feed a city of a million people. Aeroponics as practiced here on Earth can already reduce that by a factor of 100, which is still an enormous amount of pressurized volume.

Here's a breakdown of an actual farm's electricity usage per square meter, per month:

How Much Electricity Does a Vertical Farm Use?

You need about 1,000m^2 to continuously feed 50,000 people using sweet potatoes, so 65.25MWh/month. Feeding a million people (65.26 * 20), requires 1,305.2MWh per month, or a daily power output of 43.5MWe. No power is used to provide a pressurized environment on Earth-bound vertical farming operations, obviously. In short, power consumption will be enormous, even for this limited volume of pressurized space. If it was much greater because we opted to use soil-based agriculture, then we're talking about many times more power output if sunlight alone is insufficient, plus temperature regulation, plus pressurization, plus water use.

Some notes on food service operations outside of the military:

I've worked for some of the largest corporations in America. All of them have cafeterias and onsite food vendors. All of them are subsidized by the company to one degree or another. None of them have ever been 100% free. I agree that Mars would be unique, in that there's no established commercial food vendors or suppliers, as you noted, to provide alternatives to a company cafeteria. However, I feel as though the desired end state is having commercial availability of food for purchase, and ultimately food security. That means we need a local food production and distribution economy established, ASAP. In this case, the incentive to pay for a specific food service is tied to conservation of available food supplies. We either need a well-thought-out governance program to conserve limited food supplies during the interplanetary transits and base construction periods, or we need a for-profit corporation that's monetarily incentivized to assure the availability of food through conservation of resources (reducing food waste associated with cafeteria style operations).

While I outlined how military ships run their food service operations (something virtually all sailors- both enlisted and officers, including myself, have directly participated in for a minimum of 3 to 6 months in most cases), the same problems apply to cruise ships- namely a massive waste of food caused by the fact that the food services are not run for profit, cost is not a serious issue, and there's no real incentive for food conservation. Although cruise ships are run for profit, unlike military ships, your ticket is primarily paying for operating / maintaining the ship and paying the crew members. Food availability is already well established in the places cruise ships visit. Getting more food for a ship or even an island is not a serious problem on Earth. In space, everything is either imported at fantastic cost or it's grown in space, also at fantastic cost. Given that fact, we need a corporation established to grow, store, prepare, monitor, and control food consumption, no different than any other supply chain management operation.

For example, we have for-hire ships, for-hire food service operations (end-to-end food provisioning supply chains), for-hire fuel delivery operations, and these corporations need to operate both in space and on Mars, to avoid the problem Terraformer outlined. The same would apply to construction companies. There needs to be a monetary incentive to control costs and select the most efficient methods for supplying goods and services. Another industry that will require pressurized agricultural space on Mars is textile farming of hemp and fungus-based bedding (sheets, blankets, towels, washclothes) / clothing / packaging products. If the colony can supply its own water / food / clothing / construction materials, then it's self-sustaining, provided that children can also live there. Creating a new Svalbard on Mars makes little sense to me.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 14:11:52

Terraformer wrote:

I deliberately tried to skew the scenario so the Corporation can make profit.
That should tell you all you need to know. Reality won't rig itself in your favour in such a way.

I'm sorry you still don't understand. Government = failure, everyone dies. Profit = success.
Is that not simple enough?

Perhaps I need to elaborate a little more. Anything on the Moon or "cislunar" is completely useless for Mars. I don't want to repeat, just read Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars".

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 14:39:22

kbd512,

All talk about hydroponics or aeroponics ignores the fact these systems require a lot of nutrients. Where will you get your nutrients? Your calculation of greenhouse volume fails to tak into account processing Mars dirt to extract needed nutrients for aeroponic nutrient solutions. Soil agriculture completely bypasses that problem. Let the plants extract the nutrients from soil instead of some industrial infrastructure.

I've worked for large companies as well. Many (not all) have cafeterias, and they aren't free. However, major software companies often do make the cafeteria free. Of course those companies expect extremely long working hours: 60 to 80 hours per week.

kbd512 · 2021-11-02 14:55:22

RobertDyck,

If we have a closed loop life support system, then where are all those nutrients ultimately going?

I presume a lot of it will be recycled, and many of those nutrients will be dissolved into the brine we extract from Mars or the urinals, as well as ground-up food waste.

Since we've yet to grow anything in Martian regolith, we have no clue how well that will work. Aeroponics doesn't require nearly as much water or pressurized space, which will be much more difficult to come by than trace elements. We can ship vitamins to Mars. We won't be shipping greenhouses of the required size to Mars if we're totally reliant upon soil for agriculture. If the regolith or water contains heavy metals or other toxins, then we need those filtered out as well. I don't see how you can avoid that type of contamination by simply putting plants in the ground. If it works, great, but you still need orders of magnitude more pressurized greenhouse space by using soil.

RobertDyck · 2021-11-02 15:58:29

Closed loop systems cannot grow, and cannot provide surplus to replace losses.

Be careful with terms like "heavy metals". That's often used to refer to iron. The human body needs iron; hemoglobin of our blood is based on iron.

Years ago I showed a soil analysis from Sojourner rover to an individual with a university degree in soil analysis. Specifically soil analysis. Her concerns were no nitrogen of any sort what so ever, potassium was low, and very high iron. But many plants tolerate high iron.

MDRS has grown plants in regolith simulant. They simulate regolith with igneous soil from volcanoes. Simulant JSC Mars One was harvested from the slopes of Maunakea in Hawaii. Plants do grow in it. Mineral mix is not exactly the same as Mars, but it is as close as we have.

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