The Cost of Going to Mars - A cost estimate of Colonization

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-24 07:10:47

srmeaney,

I think you need to look at colonization as 100's not 1000's or even millions in the first 50 to 100 years of settlement. We need to develop the infrastructure to move larger volumes of people up to 50 per mission that is 10 x what we do now in space exploration.

Just to supply a moonbase , marsbase , earth orbiting station, a L-Point orbiting station/s and the explorer missions to other planetary bodies will require a larger number of vessels. This doesn't including controlling or collecting from mining outposts, construction facilities in orbit or planetary side or even other scientific developments.

We could develop the above on a budget of US$100 Billion per year and then expanding that with resources off-planet from the moon, mars, asteroids and other planetary bodies within our solar system. currently we are just doing explorer missions for transporting up to 6 persons to the moon and possibly to Mars in 25 years. ( manned exploration budget for NASA is under US$10 Billion per year - total budget of US$16.7 Billion Approx.)

We don't know what workforce structure is needed in a human centric interplanetary society, what skills and careers opportunities and what new products, services that could be created from the expansion into space. All these questions are needing answers before we go to the moon permanently or to mars permanently because the development of explorer / tourist missions will be the first step to colonization / settlement.

We won't get to 20 million people in space within the next 100 years or even 200 years but we will eventually get there. The major point is the development of the strategies, economic, financial, industrial and social processes are there for the expansion to occur.

cIclops · 2007-02-25 14:40:15

Government financed and organized colonization is the wrong way to go, there is no imperative to tax people to settle Mars. There are many many places on Earth still unsettled - more than 80% of this planet is unsettled. When living on Mars becomes viable people will move there, that's when it makes sense. Government has a critical role in developing the science and technology, but there its role should end.

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-26 03:31:12

cIclops,

There only three methods for funding colonization to Mars or build any space hardware , base, or facility - 1. Government Funding 2. Private Sector Funding including individuals or 3. a mixture of 1 and 2 .

I think we need the 3 funding arrangements to build the world outside Earth. If not, we will have issues about moving off the planet and even going to Mars for anything other than a tourist mission .

cIclops · 2007-02-26 03:54:43

cIclops,
There only three methods for funding colonization to Mars or build any space hardware , base, or facility - 1. Government Funding 2. Private Sector Funding including individuals or 3. a mixture of 1 and 2 .
I think we need the 3 funding arrangements to build the world outside Earth. If not, we will have issues about moving off the planet and even going to Mars for anything other than a tourist mission .

Settlements are way way in the future, at least 50 years maybe 100 or more. It's possible that after a base is established there will be some government subsidy for expanding it into a colony, but even this is undesirable. Why? Because settlement will be dependent on the whims of government, if funding is withdrawn the colony will die.

Look at the problems NASA has to get enough funding to just begin the technology development of the basic infrastructure. The cost of that will be tiny compared with supporting a colony. Settlements make sense when they are self supporting and can finance their own transportation and supplies.

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-26 06:51:50

cIclops,

That can not happen until we hit critical mass outside the earth , with the infrastructure, personnel, vessels, power supplies and more. We can not build into space unless the space fairing nations approve the missions and provide licenses for space objects.

If they don't want your space launching or objects in space , on the moon, or any other space body within our solar system they don't need to provide the right to do that. Under the Outer Space Treaty or Moon Treaty or Registration of Objects Treaty - all provide an Article clause that makes the "state " meaning your country responsible for government and non-government launchings and objects in our solar system. So they have the right to stop it under International Law and thus are provided under domestic law.

So, Private Enterprise would need to development there commercial space projects with approval of the "state" approving body and follow the rules / regulations set down within the license and any breach to the license / permit could find the people in breach in Jail for breach of Country and International Law.

Countries include : United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France , Japan, Germany, Australia, European Union, China, Ukraine, and more

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-26 07:27:44

Haha, "international law" *chuckles* Not that anybody really takes it seriously anymore anyway, whats the UN going to do, tell countries supporting a private colony to stop or face sanctions? And jail? Oh please, like they'd haul some latter-day Elon Musk to the Hauge? You have got to be kidding me.

The "space treaty" was written to prevent states from claiming outer space as protectorates, it has no bearing on private corporations, but more importantly other UN statutes I am sure support the human right of self-determination. If nobody owns a particular plot of land in space, then how could this principle be superseded?

So if people go and live on Mars privately, then there is no space law against that, and in fact "international law" even defacto supports it in spirit.

And yes I say privately, because I agree with cIclops that a real push for colonization has to be private. The government has no business supporting colonists over other citizens in the first place, and secondly government funding would prevent private solutions to support problems. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

What government can do is develop the technology and make it available to a colonization organization, and perhaps provide a "beach head" base to supply fuel, water, and perhaps communications to an early colony. Perhaps not even for free.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-02-26 11:59:10

Let's get this straight guys putting the word private in front of something doesn't automatically make it a magical success story. Space colonization is not going to be private because it doesn't have enough profit, its too risky, investor and shareholders ain't ever gonna invest in something that may getting America's best people killed, even Megabuck billionaires like Warren Buffett, WeeChoYaw, Lorenzo Zambrano, Bill Gates or Adelson could never afford a Lunar colony even if they pooled all their money together and most importantly the private sector simply doesn't have the right stuff and has enough trouble as it is trying to get a decent payload into LEO. Just like the old superpowers of Europe - theBritish Empire, the Portuguese...Colonisation will be done by governments and nations. Which might be why NASA is freaking out about competition form Russia, Europe and China and not freaking out about competitors from the private sector. The private boys will finally follow when the route is safe and profitable enough like a bunch of ticks and fleas that suck blood from the back of the dog that has already gone swimming across the river.

Martian Republic · 2007-02-26 12:55:03

And yes I say privately, because I agree with cIclops that a real push for colonization has to be private. The government has no business supporting colonists over other citizens in the first place, and secondly government funding would prevent private solutions to support problems. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.
What government can do is develop the technology and make it available to a colonization organization, and perhaps provide a "beach head" base to supply fuel, water, and perhaps communications to an early colony. Perhaps not even for free.

This won't happen.

Why should government finance private business or individuals in some colonization program?

Beside that, it would not work anyway. Look at what Enron did to California in the energy deregulation scam. The state of California had a three to four billion dollars surplus before the Enron inspired deregulation plan was put forward. After the inaction of that deregulation law and after about six to eight months later, the citizen and the state of California lost over twenty to thirty billion dollars in being over charged for there electricity. This is the reality of what will really happen, without having government regulation to guard against that kind of fraud. When ever there are billions of dollars that can be stolen, then you will have some thief trying to steal it. These thivies go where the money at and it doesn't matter who get hurt as long as they get money.

Even the colonization of Africa and the America's have to have some government backing it up. There may have been private corporation doing the colonization, but they had to have some government backing them up.

No, a better plan would be to have a government charter and maybe a constitution that guarantee's the colonist rights right from the get go. Also we will need to set up a banking system to do the financing of developing both technology and to build the needed infrastructure to support that Mars colony. We would also have to set up Martian government to regulate the developing economy and to manage some of the key infrastructure like water & sewage, electricity along with life support system. Having a Martian government performing that task, is the only way to get that job done or you can't have a Martian colony. It the governments down here that build and run most of that kind of infrastructure down here too, like roads, subway, other mass transit system, water & sewage system, etc.

So why do you think that rules are going to be different for how we are going to be building infrastructure in space?

Won't they be bound by the same rules that had to be used to colonize the America's?

Larry,

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-26 19:56:37

The First Issue in the debate of Colonization is the rules (or Regulations) to Colonize into Space. That currently falls to the International Outer Space Treaty and the National Laws based on that Treaty in each nation. (including all the major space powers)

If the nation doesn't like your idea of business in space or it could harm relationships with the International community or reputation then it won't allow you to do it, simple. They have the power under the nation's laws to do that.

Second Issue in this debate is funding, how to fund it and where long term funding comes from to build the interplanetary and local planet economies up to critical mass to be self-funding. ( Upwards of US$5 Trillion Dollars [ US$ 5,000,000,000,000 .00 ] or more )

Third Issues in the Debate the Development of the Infrastructure, training personnel, and commencement of a century long project - getting the right team of people together and also building in an succession plan for continuing the plan.

That is the simpliest list of goals for this complex and multi-facet project spanning decades to create a viable space economies spanning the solar system and moving 100's possible 1000's of human permanently off the earth into space.

Martian Republic · 2007-02-26 21:14:45

The First Issue in the debate of Colonization is the rules (or Regulations) to Colonize into Space. That currently falls to the International Outer Space Treaty and the National Laws based on that Treaty in each nation. (including all the major space powers)
If the nation doesn't like your idea of business in space or it could harm relationships with the International community or reputation then it won't allow you to do it, simple. They have the power under the nation's laws to do that.

I admit that if some country like the United States were to do something like that, that it would be a good idea to tell the other major countries and try to work out an acceptable deal with them. In an effort to try and keep harmony with the other nations.

Second Issue in this debate is funding, how to fund it and where long term funding comes from to build the interplanetary and local planet economies up to critical mass to be self-funding. ( Upwards of US$5 Trillion Dollars [ US$ 5,000,000,000,000 .00 ] or more )

I agree with you that the amount of money that would have to be invested in Mars Colonization program would have to be in that amount somewhere. That would eliminate most of the two most common answers that we hear from other people. Which are:
1. Private investment either being corporate or private individuals.
2. Government Money raised through taxation.
Neither source could come up with the needed funds, obviously the Government could come up with a whole lot more money then the private sector. Now there is a third possibility, but it not mentioned very often, which is going back to either Alexander Hamilton First National Bank System or Abraham Lincoln Treasury Note System. Who ever controls the Central Bank of the United States has the power to generate credit. Which they have to do or the US economy will implode on itself. The amount of credit that has to be generated per year is something like 500 billion to one trillion dollars per year. So over a fifty year period there will have to have been between 25 trillion to 50 trillion dollars generated for investment purposes. Matter of fact, that the only place that you could get that kind of money for financing Mars colonization program.

Third Issues in the Debate the Development of the Infrastructure, training personnel, and commencement of a century long project - getting the right team of people together and also building in an succession plan for continuing the plan.
That is the simpliest list of goals for this complex and multi-facet project spanning decades to create a viable space economies spanning the solar system and moving 100's possible 1000's of human permanently off the earth into space.

To build the infrastructure or to develop the new technologies that you also need, you would use part of the 25 to 50 trillion dollars to pay for it. You would use Kennedy right off system on the Infrastructure that your building or replacing or even transfer some of that Infrastructure to private hands if deemed appropriate. Or a Hamilton self extinguishing dept system. Or set up the tax laws and low interest rate for business that do the right kind of investments, etc. Or some combination of the above. The rest of that amount would be used to finance and build infrastructure inside the United States.

That is how the banking and investment system was set up under the First National Bank, Second National Bank, The Treasury Note Under Lincoln and to a lesser extent FDR, he used Treasury Notes too, but the Federal Reserve System wasn't done with.

Larry,

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-26 23:06:26

I don't agree that a private space effort is doomed to failure, primarily because you equate it with a corporate, for-profit endeavor.

It won't be, it will be private, but it won't be for profit

Secondly, I didn't say we'd be doing this tomorrow; this is a job for the latter half of the century most likely (barring invention of a space elevator), at which time the technology for spaceflight will be better, and the stronger economy making expensive space hardware more affordable without having to become cheaper.

I believe that with the introduction of commercially operated RLVs (likely SSTO space plane), probably high-energy nuclear propulsion for transit to/from Mars, and the general improvements in miniaturized technology (particularly manufacturing and medical) that it will be possible to build a colony on Mars for less than what NASA pays for spaceflight today.

Logistically, the key will be reusable vehicles, particularly a lander on the Mars end stationed, serviced, and fueled on the surface. This will enable small, cheap rockets to deliver useful amounts of payload and high-energy nuclear rockets to deliver very large payloads or modest ones (eg people, livestock) quickly.

There will be very little in the way of "space infrastructure" because not much is really needed: rather than having space fuel depots and space cargo warehouses and all that, the RLVs will simply lift their payloads directly to the Earth/Mars transfer vehicles. When one of these vehicles wears out or cannot be fixed, it will again simply be disguarded and a new one launched. Having and using a true RLV to its full potential makes all this possible and affordable.

Although significant amounts of payload will be required, I don't think that a small colony will require as much as most people think after initial factories are constructed. Bulk steel, Al/Mg alloy, bulk polymers, glass, and the majority of foodstuffs can all be made on Mars from native materials, which reduces what has to be imported to almost nothing. Especially food shouldn't be a problem, even proteins furnished by fish or vat-grown tissues would do just fine. With a little nitrogen or sulfur, large polymeric solar arrays should be easy to make too. We don't have all these technologies yet, but by the latter half of the century they will be.

NASA will already have a base on Mars by this time, with a supply of water for rocket fuel/LSS/food and will have tested out the technologies needed to make the colony lander, green houses/habitats, and mapped out good places to put the colony. However beyond being a technology tester and offering "beach head" resources for the initial building teams that is as far as the government will go.

Financially, the source of income will be from relatively well-to-do people who make the conscious decision to trade their Earthly material wealth for their own Martian apartment, which will add up to a nontrivial sum. This combined with wealth philanthropist donations and it will likely climb to the eight digit region. Enough to get started anyway.

Please, "oh your money will just be stolen! therefore you can't build a colony!" is stupid, the level of graft and thievery by Enron et al. was largely due to manipulating the stock price of the company, not by actually stealing money. You can't just "steal" a billion dollars, thats asinine, carefuly spending will protect it just fine like so many other billion-dollar companies. There are plenty of safe investments out there too, the people who got wiped out by Enron were the fools who hedged all their bets on it. And the train wreck in progress that is California is the perfect example of why a private organization would be more efficient. In fact, I say that governments, not private organizations, are more likely to be stolen from.

And no, a Mars colony will absolutely not be like Earth colonial-period colonies. Those colonies were made to benefit the parent country materially and strategically, but in the case of Mars this will not be an incentive.

What is this jibbering about "Martian government" etc etc? Don't oil derricks and cruise ships have their own rules, organizational structures, and security? Martian colonists won't be on Mars if they don't want to live there either after all.

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-26 23:24:42

"Upwards of US$5 Trillion Dollars"

Pthfff nonsense. Colonists won't be riding to Mars nor cargo sent with expensive expendable rockets.

Now there is a third possibility, but it not mentioned very often, which is going back to either Alexander Hamilton First National Bank System or Abraham Lincoln Treasury Note System. Who ever controls the Central Bank of the United States has the power to generate credit...

Credit is not real money, its faux-money. You don't know anything about economics or banking. Just the tired old "founding fathers secret credit jujitsu ninja banking money-printing spinning finishing move COMBO!!!" to magically make a gagillion dollars appear out of thin air without obliterating the economy.

Which they have to do or the US economy will implode on itself...So over a fifty year period there will have to have been between 25 trillion to 50 trillion dollars generated for investment purposes

No, no dear. Thats not how it works. You don't understand how the mechanics of the federal debt work at all.

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-27 00:34:22

GCNRevenger,

The number of US$ 5 Trillion or more was over the project life of 50 - 100 years. ( 25 - 50 Billion per year )

Yes, Private Enterprise can build into space, but the legal framework isn't there for return of capital for public shareholders unless you are a private company. they have different reasons can be used for private company owners going into space and using the resources to do it.

I agree that the nuclear / plasma / eventually ion drive systems will decrease the overall costs moving between space bodies (either artifical or natural ) but the development of increased power systems wil be required before engine systems.

We still need to move a large volume of cargo, supplies, personnel from earth to the settlements near or far and still have the safety of the personnel in mind. The use of unmanned cargo vessels will reduce the personnel risk and increase the overall volume in resources moved to the various locations and back. ( including the movement of water from various large water sources in the solar system until the creation of large permanent water sources on the various settlements.

But planning for colonization is different to the tourist / explorer missions that NASA and other agencies are development for Moon and Mars, not the missions would be used for the expansion into space for the human society.

cIclops · 2007-02-27 06:11:04

Living on Mars possible

HYDERABAD: India's first mission to moon 'Chandrayaan I' this year, manned mission to earth's satellite in 2014, landing on Mars in 2020 and perhaps colonisation of the red planet later. That's Indian space think tank's list of missions for the future.
The rotation of Mars is more or less as earth, but it has just one-third its density and one-tenth its atmosphere. "The day time temperatures are about 20 degrees Celsius though night time temperatures are low. We should be able to build an atmosphere without much problem. Then, we could send half our population there," said Physical Research Laboratory council chairman and former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief Prof U R Rao on Monday.

Anyone esle find this type of thinking disturbing as well as absurd?

GCNRevenger · 2007-02-27 07:14:29

No no, not even $50Bn/yr, it just won't cost that much

Again, this won't be a company, it won't be operated to make money. There will be no "shareholders," no stock, there will be no profit from "space resources," it will exist for just one purpose: to organize and execute colonization of Mars. No more, no less.

For one thing, by the latter half of the century AltSpace should (hopefully) have gotten its act together to an extent, and there will be at least some competition with the big-name aerospace companies of the 2000's. With cheap launch and transport, the need for everything to be ultra-super-light won't be so great, thus smaller companies could get into the game.

We already have designs for compact and light weight megawatt-class space reactors, those are fairly easy to build. The catch is more efficient converters, but thats something that should not be particularly difficult. A Mars colony could use a lot of solar power too with cheap polymeric solar arrays or thermal collectors. Capturing heat for use at night ought to mitigate the amount of power needed from non-solar sources.

No! We do not need to move "large amounts of stuff," since most of it can be produced on Mars. You send the factories to make and process, and then you don't need to bring 80-90% of the mass from Earth anymore. Especially not water, there is no good reason to "move it to/from all over the solar system" or anything like that. There is permafrost under the Martian surface that can be melted/extracted, or that failing there is an ocean of water locked up as ice on the poles. A Mars colony won't be just throwing away its water either, most of it will be recycled.

SpaceNut · 2007-02-27 07:29:35

I agree GCNRevenger no super nova sized budgets to go forth. We need a sensible plan leveraging from the use of Ares I and Ares V with just a small amount of additional R&D costs to go to mars.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-02-27 07:30:34

Living on Mars possible
HYDERABAD: India's first mission to moon 'Chandrayaan I' this year, manned mission to earth's satellite in 2014, landing on Mars in 2020 and perhaps colonisation of the red planet later. That's Indian space think tank's list of missions for the future.
The rotation of Mars is more or less as earth, but it has just one-third its density and one-tenth its atmosphere. "The day time temperatures are about 20 degrees Celsius though night time temperatures are low. We should be able to build an atmosphere without much problem. Then, we could send half our population there," said Physical Research Laboratory council chairman and former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief Prof U R Rao on Monday.
Anyone esle find this type of thinking disturbing as well as absurd?

ISRO goals - serious or ridiculous ?
India Wants To Send Man Into Space Ahead Of Further Missions Beyond LEO
SPACE TRAVEL

Martian Republic · 2007-02-27 11:52:01

No! We do not need to move "large amounts of stuff," since most of it can be produced on Mars. You send the factories to make and process, and then you don't need to bring 80-90% of the mass from Earth anymore. Especially not water, there is no good reason to "move it to/from all over the solar system" or anything like that. There is permafrost under the Martian surface that can be melted/extracted, or that failing there is an ocean of water locked up as ice on the poles. A Mars colony won't be just throwing away its water either, most of it will be recycled.

You seem to use the magic word FACTORIES like you accuse me of mis-representing banking and credit system that exist in the United States. I have spent over twenty years in factories and know how they work and function. That is one of my area's of expertise and know when I run into someone that doesn't know what there talking about. For that 80-90% of that mass that not going to be coming from the Earth anymore, your going to have to have a series of factories, tooling, foundries, Plating, Heat treat, mining equipment, power plants, etc. There are some general purpose machines that we could send to Mars, but they would only be for primarily for repairs and/or maybe a few specialty manufactured part for some project that we doing. But, your not going to get any major manufacturing effort accomplished with even just a few hundred people on Mars. Since I have been in the machine shop area, tooling, etc. One interesting test would be to see how much stuff that I could manufacture with a lathe, mill, boring mill, grinders in one of those Martian one week or two week missions in the desert or some place else. That would give us a pretty good idea what we would be able to do on Mars too. Since that one of my expertise of what I have done most of my adult life. There are at least three things that your not taking into account and they are:
1. The different types of machines that your going to have to buy for different factories and foundries in half dozen different arias of manufacturing something and all those machines have to come from the Earth and it going to be a lot of machines and it will be heavy too.
2. The support equipment to support to support manufacturing process will weigh as much or be as big or bigger than than the stuff we are sending to setup a factory with and it will have to come from the Earth too. Like mining equipment, bulldozers, trucks, power plants, etc.
3. Dedicate a fairly large number of people to that manufacturing of things on Mars or it not going to get built and you will probably have to have more than two or three hundred people on Mars to do that too. You will probably need several thousand or even tenths of thousand of people on Mars to get that magic number to get the 80-90% that you say that your trying to get.

I know what I am talking about, because I use to work Menasco which use to make Landing Gear for Boeing and Lockeed Martin. There was about 500 people at Menasco and probably another 500 people that working as sub-contractors to Menasco. There probably tens of thousand working for both Boeing and Lockeed Martin and with tens of thousand of more people working as sub-contractors to them through companies like Prat Witney and such. All this to build air craft. Now I am not saying that you have to have all that infrastructure to hit 80-90% goal of manufacturing some that you set, but your going to have to have some portion of that kind of infrastructure or your just howling in the wind.

Martin_Tristar · 2007-02-28 00:59:42

GCNR and SpaceNut,

I agree the development of factories on Mars, or Moon or in orbit will come, but the movement of supplies until you can build these manufacturing facilities , including the raw materials or mining of these minerals will cost. The movement of humans will be the greatest cost in the settlement of space and mantaining their environment.

Currently the NASA Manned bugdet is limited to the current missions and numbers of humans within these missions, but the increase of people on the surface of both Moon and Mars will increase the personnel rotations and increase the volume of vessels under construction, and maintenance. So when we move permanently off the planet the costs will increase upwards to meet the matching increase in human space population.

I don't think you are looking at the cost for a planetary shift in human development. the world GDP will eventually expand into a solar system based GDP that will eventually grow into a multi=planet economy. We will find that numbers like Billions are too small and Trillions will be to small as well. ( example 1 billion tonnes of iron - valued in trillions that comes from the astroid belt not a planet or moon ) When we start to expand into this economy for the next evolution of the human society.

The value of Mars could be 100x current World GDP in resources and the ability to gror food for itself and food processing for our planetary outposts, Moon with the material resources could be worth 10 - 30x World GDP , when you value the resources for planet use of a human settlement.

We have hundreds of Planetoids, Planets, Moons in our solar systems before we look into the asteroids and other objectives in the keiper belt or Ord Cloud. The human Society could find all the material resources it requires the build a large space populated human society before even looking past our solar system. Everyone has their opinions on the speed or direction to get the human race to move into this phase of human evolution.

I can see a method to generate that wealth required to expand the human race into space permanently and bring US$50 - 100 Billion funds per year without a single government agency involvement. ( ALL Private Enterprise which is still 1/2 -1% of the current World GDP. Over the next ten years the World GDP will grow in US$20 Trillion per year or more economy ) I find that you should look for methods to get your ideas of Mars Direct off the ground, don't think that the volume of funds are too large , just scale up your solutions.

cIclops · 2007-02-28 04:50:36

This is all fantasy. Let's take a real scenario. Today 70% of this planet, far more in area than the surface of Mars, is available for settlement. It is covered by international law and people are free to live there, all they need are vessels. The technology to do this is extremely mature and widely available. There are ample free insitu resources: air, water, and even food as well access to vast quantities of minerals in the sea water. The status of the sea bed under international waters is not clear, but let's ignore that for now. Consider the cost of building a vessel that could support settlers, yes it would be expensive, but compared with even reaching LEO it is extremely cheap. So now ask why people are not living in this vast resource rich area? It's not politics, not technology, it's because there are so many better places to live on land, where it's far cheaper and life and business are so much easier.

Maybe in the far future when the oceans are full of floating cities and the seabeds have colonies and much cheaper access to space is available (will it ever be cheaper than access to the oceans and seas?), maybe if there is sufficient political pressure or perhaps population pressure (the human population is currently predicted to decline after 2050) then there will be settlement of Mars.

Today it costs about $250,000 to put 1 kg on Mars, you can put 1 kg on the ocean for about $1. That's the gap between fantasy and reality.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-02-28 09:39:31

All for 23 billion per person, now if that was a more realistic 23 million for the elite or even as low as 23 thousand for the common person then the journey could start today.

If each one of those colonists had 657,142 Artificially Intelligent Robots working for him, then this should be pulled off easily. The main stumbling block is building a mass producable robot that is as intelligent and as dexterous as a human, that way each person on Earth would be the equivalent of a CEO of a major corporation and have the resources of 657,142 artificial beings working for him, then he ought to be able to get himself to Mars quite easily. In one hundred years, if everyone had 657,142 robots working for him, then travel to and from Mars ought to be quite routine. I wonder though what 3.9 x 10^15 robots would do to the environment of the Earth? Presumably the 657,142 robots would stay on Earth to manage the launch systems while their masters travel to and from Mars. I doubt the humans would actually need to work once they get there, after all that's what robots are for, and more robots can obviously be built on Mars. I'm assuming of course that each robot requires $35,000 in annual resources to keep it going.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-03-19 03:18:07

This won't happen.
Why should government finance private business or individuals in some colonization program?
Beside that, it would not work anyway. Look at what Enron did to California in the energy deregulation scam. The state of California had a three to four billion dollars surplus before the Enron inspired deregulation plan was put forward. After the inaction of that deregulation law and after about six to eight months later, the citizen and the state of California lost over twenty to thirty billion dollars in being over charged for there electricity. This is the reality of what will really happen, without having government regulation to guard against that kind of fraud. When ever there are billions of dollars that can be stolen, then you will have some thief trying to steal it. These thivies go where the money at and it doesn't matter who get hurt as long as they get money.
Even the colonization of Africa and the America's have to have some government backing it up. There may have been private corporation doing the colonization, but they had to have some government backing them up.
No, a better plan would be to have a government charter and maybe a constitution that guarantee's the colonist rights right from the get go. Also we will need to set up a banking system to do the financing of developing both technology and to build the needed infrastructure to support that Mars colony. We would also have to set up Martian government to regulate the developing economy and to manage some of the key infrastructure like water & sewage, electricity along with life support system. Having a Martian government performing that task, is the only way to get that job done or you can't have a Martian colony. It the governments down here that build and run most of that kind of infrastructure down here too, like roads, subway, other mass transit system, water & sewage system, etc.
So why do you think that rules are going to be different for how we are going to be building infrastructure in space?
Won't they be bound by the same rules that had to be used to colonize the America's?
Larry,

The private sector has given the US economy some great things in free trade, lower costs, but when it comes to space exploration they are a complete joke

cIclops · 2007-03-19 03:43:05

The private sector has given the US economy some great things in free trade, lower costs, but when it comes to space exploration they are a complete joke

Yes and the private sector has totally failed to give us affordable access to the ocean depths.

Grypd · 2007-03-19 18:08:43

I would have to say that the reason that there is not affordable access to the oceans depths is simply down to there being no reason to do so. The law of the sea pretty much stops any property claims or even resource utilisation.

A bit like space then!!

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-03-19 22:50:12

I would have to say that the reason that there is not affordable access to the oceans depths is simply down to there being no reason to do so. The law of the sea pretty much stops any property claims or even resource utilisation.
A bit like space then!!

When you are over certain parts of the ocean, the bottom is only a few miles away, but those are hard miles to travel. Water pressure builds up quite quickly when you go straight down, the most expensive part of it is surviving the environment, and this has a certain cost to it.

The most effective way to colonize Mars is with a space Elevator on Earth.

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