What would a Mars colony have to offer in the way of goods and services?

[tater]

3 hours ago, Halo_003 said:

I never said it made sense. I said I could see it happening. It doesn't have to make sense to be possible, and I doubt the type of people I'm referring to would look at it that way.

It makes so little sense as to be ridiculous.

[Red Fang]

12 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

What are we looking at? One tonne of equipment per person? Ten tonnes of equipment per person? One hundred tonnes of equipment per colony, plus twenty tons per person?

Probably thousands of tonnes + tens per colonist.  To get a semi-self sufficient colony. You need to establish large/medium scale production of  air, water (has to be dug up/piped up and purified), construction materials, steel, glass, plastics, food, copper, lubricants, industrial chemicals, machined products...  You may need to ship in compost for a while as well. That list is just big enough so you could sustain basic consumables production and construction of buildings.  If almost anything breaks down, you need to bring spare parts. Good luck setting up a ball bearing factory on Mars, or anything close to mass producing electronic components, or even making space suits.  Setting up anything resembling a decent industrial capacity that can be self sustained for decades? Thousands of people... Almost anything you would need to set up industry on Mars is either Hi-tech, heavy or both. 

On an SF note... 
Even in Red Mars trilogy, which is optimistic at best, Mars stays dependent on technology shipped from Earth for a century. That is in a world where Arabs decide to get rid of Bedouins and other desert folk by moving them to Mars.   With a good enough machining you can start rocketpunking your way by building some instruments (pressure gauges, valves, tachometers), electric motors etc... But you also need to reproduce industrial capacity for making all sorts of materials on Mars. IDK how much of that can be done with local chemistry. You'll be short on nitrogen and hydrogen for sure. 
 

[Hannu2]

I think that manned space exploration and colonization can never be justified by economics. It is extremely expensive work which does not give returns in reasonable time and maybe never.

Asteroid mining will probably be only economically feasible large scale industry in space in foreseeable future. But it will be mostly robot work. When rocket prices allow severe development of mining machines, maybe after 25-50 years, industrial automation is far higher level than now. Probably there are not much jobs for human engineers in Earth, too. Asteroid mining will also not need planets for anything. Atmosphereless and practically gravityless asteroids give everything such processes will need.

But manned operations, especially colonization, must have ideological reasons. Now leading ideology is short-sighted capitalism without any nobler objectives than selfish profits, but this is exceptional time in mankind's history. I hope and believe that this is relatively short period (decades) and there will be times when humans will again do big projects for other reasons than money. The most magnificent project have always been mostly ideological, even during space age. Maybe we will not see it but after 100 years things may be different. Mankind need same attitude it had during great expeditions. Taxpayers and other financiers have to learn to tolerate failures. They have to think over decades or centuries. They have to accept that they will not get other benefits than knowledge that they stay forever in history books as beginners of the colonization of space, which eventually makes mankind independent of one planet and cosmic catastrophes. And maybe it makes mankind as a technical civilization instead of animal population.

[tater]

Very few magnificent projects in human history have been ideological. Profit, even if limited to a ruler and his class, has been the primary motivator for all of history, with personal glory next in line. The Space Race of the 1960s might in fact be the only exception.

[Hannu2]

Of course propaganda and indirect show of power have been essential motivation for such projects. But tendency to just accumulate enormous private fortunes only to get even more money is relatively new phenomenon. I hope and think that there probably will be times when richest or politically or religiously most powerful individuals can get more power and fame by funding monumental projects, for example ambitious and expensive space programs. Most such projects, like huge old cathedrals all over Europe, seven wonders of ancient world, the great wall of China, expeditions to poles, Apollo-program have been economically just throwing away insane amount of economical resources for their financiers. They have bought fame and power, not invested to get more money than they paid.

[tater]

37 minutes ago, Hannu2 said:

Of course propaganda and indirect show of power have been essential motivation for such projects. But tendency to just accumulate enormous private fortunes only to get even more money is relatively new phenomenon. I hope and think that there probably will be times when richest or politically or religiously most powerful individuals can get more power and fame by funding monumental projects, for example ambitious and expensive space programs. Most such projects, like huge old cathedrals all over Europe, seven wonders of ancient world, the great wall of China, expeditions to poles, Apollo-program have been economically just throwing away insane amount of economical resources for their financiers. They have bought fame and power, not invested to get more money than they paid.

The Great Wall was a military/geopolitical exercise, that's off the table. Cathedrals? They were to increase the power/prestige of the Church. People, usually just a few, stood to gain something, and ideally did this with other people's money.

I can understand us going to Mars as a national contest (which is 100% of the reason we went to the Moon), but "ideology?" I'm not seeing it for Mars. If ideology is required, then a Mars colony is off the table (which is fine, since Mars isn't a great place to colonize). So there is no ideological reason for a Mars colony, and no economic reason. Stick a fork in it, it's done

[Ixenzo]

I really don't see a point in establishing permanent colonies on Mars. I could understand self-sufficient highly advanced Moon colony with spacecraft-building capabilities for easier access to Solar system but Mars? It's just too far away with our current technology with little to nothing to compensate for it. After all, Earth ain't so bad of a place for now and you're already here.

[fredinno]

7 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

I think that manned space exploration and colonization can never be justified by economics. It is extremely expensive work which does not give returns in reasonable time and maybe never.

Asteroid mining will probably be only economically feasible large scale industry in space in foreseeable future. But it will be mostly robot work. When rocket prices allow severe development of mining machines, maybe after 25-50 years, industrial automation is far higher level than now. Probably there are not much jobs for human engineers in Earth, too. Asteroid mining will also not need planets for anything. Atmosphereless and practically gravityless asteroids give everything such processes will need.

But manned operations, especially colonization, must have ideological reasons. Now leading ideology is short-sighted capitalism without any nobler objectives than selfish profits, but this is exceptional time in mankind's history. I hope and believe that this is relatively short period (decades) and there will be times when humans will again do big projects for other reasons than money. The most magnificent project have always been mostly ideological, even during space age. Maybe we will not see it but after 100 years things may be different. Mankind need same attitude it had during great expeditions. Taxpayers and other financiers have to learn to tolerate failures. They have to think over decades or centuries. They have to accept that they will not get other benefits than knowledge that they stay forever in history books as beginners of the colonization of space, which eventually makes mankind independent of one planet and cosmic catastrophes. And maybe it makes mankind as a technical civilization instead of animal population.

This is extremely difficult to pull off? Remember Communism? They eventually had to resort to slavery- humans naturally don't like working, and largely work much of the time because they have too. Granted, this is a REALLY large simplification, and we have more of an idea how human physiology works, but we really shouldn't underestimate how difficult this is. It rarely works how we want it, and capitalism, the most successful economic policy would have to undergo major changes. But this is largely political, so it might not be good to discuss here.

This is really a turbulent time. It seems we are or may have reached the limit of "new technologies create new jobs" that resulted so far after the industrial revolution.

However, I do think humans will still be useful in space.

[Bill Phil]

Like anything, space industrialization needs investment. Not much is currently being invested.

[fredinno]

10 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Like anything, space industrialization needs investment. Not much is currently being invested.

That's largely since few see potential in it.

[Hannu2]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Like anything, space industrialization needs investment. Not much is currently being invested.

Owners of companies want to have profits in sane time. In any case they want to make profit in their lifetime. In current situation there are far too much uncertainties that space mining would be interesting investment. It need so much technology to develop and nobody can estimate how long or how much money it takes. Only sure thing is that time is very long (compared to typical industrial investments) and costs are enormous. I think that mining industry become interested when there are large and reliable reusable lauchers. Maybe 200-1000 t to low orbit at one tenth or less of current costs per kg. But I do not believe that mining companies develop such launchers. It will probably be governments job because there are not much commercial use for such giants.

[Hannu2]

17 hours ago, fredinno said:

This is extremely difficult to pull off? Remember Communism? They eventually had to resort to slavery- humans naturally don't like working, and largely work much of the time because they have too. Granted, this is a REALLY large simplification, and we have more of an idea how human physiology works, but we really shouldn't underestimate how difficult this is. It rarely works how we want it, and capitalism, the most successful economic policy would have to undergo major changes. But this is largely political, so it might not be good to discuss here.

I live in Finland and I am old enough to remember Soviet union and communism maybe too well. I do not mean that. Fear and slavery driven systems can never product enough to make Mars colonies. But it is not true that humans never like working. In every country and culture people use huge amount of work, money, thinking etc. to polish their status in their society of to get entertainment. They buy clothes, status things, they go to expensive concerts and sport happenings, they pay and use significant part of their lifetime to watch TV. I did not mean dictator or religion lead forced ideology but such situation that significant part of people are interested in new kind of things. For example colonization of space. Exploring and science are probably too nerdy stuff for average Joe but expanding human being to other planets could be as interesting as other entertainments now and people accept that small part of their taxes is used to such activities. Entertainment and sport industry get now large support from states all around the world. I think much more than governments use to space exploration. Think for example olympic games. States and cities put billions to them and many taxpayers accept it even they know that they never get money back. They think that fame and joy are more valuable.

And one part of it may well be competition between leaders of states. They could show their mighty and productivity of their ideologies by financing space activities. I think that there must be both, people and leaders have to be interesting in colonization.

[Bill Phil]

6 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

Owners of companies want to have profits in sane time. In any case they want to make profit in their lifetime. In current situation there are far too much uncertainties that space mining would be interesting investment. It need so much technology to develop and nobody can estimate how long or how much money it takes. Only sure thing is that time is very long (compared to typical industrial investments) and costs are enormous. I think that mining industry become interested when there are large and reliable reusable lauchers. Maybe 200-1000 t to low orbit at one tenth or less of current costs per kg. But I do not believe that mining companies develop such launchers. It will probably be governments job because there are not much commercial use for such giants.

I know that companies want profits. The Thing is, though, is that there are probably some technologies that can open space up. 

[fredinno]

11 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

Owners of companies want to have profits in sane time. In any case they want to make profit in their lifetime. In current situation there are far too much uncertainties that space mining would be interesting investment. It need so much technology to develop and nobody can estimate how long or how much money it takes. Only sure thing is that time is very long (compared to typical industrial investments) and costs are enormous. I think that mining industry become interested when there are large and reliable reusable lauchers. Maybe 200-1000 t to low orbit at one tenth or less of current costs per kg. But I do not believe that mining companies develop such launchers. It will probably be governments job because there are not much commercial use for such giants.

You will never have a UHLV that is reusable. SLS is most likely the closest thing to that we will get, and maybe only the engines and boosters will be reusable with significant modifications. And even then, you would still only have a max. capacity of 150T to LEO (the maximum listed for SLS with F-1B LRBs)

If you wait for that, it will never happen. The first asteroid miners will use Antares/Delta II sized rocket + X-37B derived LEO resuable Shuttle + 1-2 T downmass.

6 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

I live in Finland and I am old enough to remember Soviet union and communism maybe too well. I do not mean that. Fear and slavery driven systems can never product enough to make Mars colonies. But it is not true that humans never like working. In every country and culture people use huge amount of work, money, thinking etc. to polish their status in their society of to get entertainment. They buy clothes, status things, they go to expensive concerts and sport happenings, they pay and use significant part of their lifetime to watch TV. I did not mean dictator or religion lead forced ideology but such situation that significant part of people are interested in new kind of things. For example colonization of space. Exploring and science are probably too nerdy stuff for average Joe but expanding human being to other planets could be as interesting as other entertainments now and people accept that small part of their taxes is used to such activities. Entertainment and sport industry get now large support from states all around the world. I think much more than governments use to space exploration. Think for example olympic games. States and cities put billions to them and many taxpayers accept it even they know that they never get money back. They think that fame and joy are more valuable.

And one part of it may well be competition between leaders of states. They could show their mighty and productivity of their ideologies by financing space activities. I think that there must be both, people and leaders have to be interesting in colonization.

Generally, they don't. You may think I'm being pessimistic, but we really have no idea how the brain works, even after all these years. People do what they want to do, but a lot of people are procrastinators who dislike working. Really, getting people to contribute to society, making new innovations and ideas in a world dominated by robots is something we know nothing about doing- the first few decades will ideally be spent with regulations on robot usage. Especially since nearly everything can be done automated, there is all of a sudden little left for humans to do- a precarious situation that usually never ends well.

 

And people accept the Olympics because people historically like sports- partially since it is "war for fun and without hurting (hopefully) others". And that's something that is much more into the human psyche. Space is not like that. Few like watching people explore the moon, and even if humans had no work to do, they'd likely rather browse Youtube.

 

Basically, in many ways, this is like the Industrial Revolution all over again. A very turbulent time.