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What do you think are the minimum things necessary for a colony of humans to become self sufficient on Mars?
What would they need to not just be self sufficient but develop industry?
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To be truly self-sufficient, they would need to be able to produce food, water, and breathable air. they must also be able to create all of the tools that they use to produce those things, and all of the tools they use to produce other tools. They should be able to build more habitats and greenhouses. Finally, there needs to be enough colonists to maintain genetic diversity.
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Going to attempt to answer my own question. Minimum self sufficiency means you need power, air (oxygen and buffer gas-nitrogen), water, food, and shelter (pressurized and heated).
Power: Solar panel farms but they'd have to be big and repair parts would still have to come from the earth. Fuel cells could supplement with the hydrogen coming from electrolysis of gray water.
Air: Carbon dioxide to oxygen converters but they do not produce very much oxygen. I think it would take 144 of these to supply enough oxygen for one person a day. Need to increase their oxygen production ten fold at least. Buffer gas, hmm. How do you make nitrogen on mars?
Water: Hydrogen fuel cells, recycling waste water, and maybe that mobile soil vacuum thing in the book The Case for Mars.
Food: Fruit tree orchard and vegetable garden with a compost pile.
Shelter: Mars hab at first then maybe build a round housing complex, like the coloseum, out of mars bricks with pressure doors and a plexiglass roof over the middle so light could reach the orchard/garden in the center.
Second question.
Some kind of mars habitat that has machines that can take in mars soil, delivered by pressurized rovers with bulldozer scoops on the front, and extract the water then separate oxides to make iron, aluminum (not sure if there's enough aluminum oxide there), glass, and plastic. Maybe waste sulfur and flourine could be combined to make sulfur hexaflouride, a very potent greenhouse gas. It would be one hell of a machine.
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It is technology dependent. An extremely advanced Robot may be able to do it all in a sports stadium sized enclosure; Build more Robots, space suits, parts for more greenhouses etc.
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For Humans, my guess would be 30 km. diameter to provide for farming and manufacturing and allow for things to go wrong.
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Looks like this is the fundamental problem; what can be manufactured locally
and what you have to order from Earth. People and rabbits will reproduce fast
enough, but technology takes more planning.
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Testing in Antarctica may not be convenient, bur a large warehouse, with easy
access, to test the concepts.
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Testing in Antarctica may not be convenient, bur a large warehouse, with easy
access, to test the concepts.
There is nothing to mine in a warehouse, so it doesn't proof the concept of autonomous machine building factories.
Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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Matter of logistics; researchers get more done if they do not have to commute to Antarctica.
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A large warehouse with several loads of rocks and sand from a desert for the robots to tackle; on a smaller scale, it would
make a good science project.
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