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

[tater]

People working night shifts have health issues that are possibly worse than low gravity, actually. A normal sleep cycle is impossible for all jobs, but for a colony, the vast majority of people should be on the same schedule (Mars, anyway). I know on the Moon people could all have a normal schedule unconcerned with the day/night outside, and have different people on different 24 hours schedules, but I think that might be odd for a sense of community. There would be huge numbers of people you'd simply never see

Regardless, 24 hour uses only adds 8 people per day per centrifuge (24/day assuming 1 hour). Also, inflatable doesn't matter unless you have more than you need, as they will be used 24/7/365, the time to deflate and stow them would be wasted, and something the order of 20m^3 per occupant (regardless of capacity) would not be surprising to me. So you'll need (Xm^3)/24 volume per crew member regardless. It's not huge, the volume I used above means 1m^3 per person dedicated to centrifuge. Still, non-trivial.

Edited January 25, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, tater said:

People working night shifts have health issues that are possibly worse than low gravity, actually. A normal sleep cycle is impossible for all jobs, but for a colony, the vast majority of people should be on the same schedule (Mars, anyway). I know on the Moon people could all have a normal schedule unconcerned with the day/night outside, and have different people on different 24 hours schedules, but I think that might be odd for a sense of community. There would be huge numbers of people you'd simply never see

Regardless, 24 hour uses only adds 8 people per day per centrifuge (24/day assuming 1 hour). Also, inflatable doesn't matter unless you have more than you need, as they will be used 24/7/365, the time to deflate and stow them would be wasted, and something the order of 20m^3 per occupant (regardless of capacity) would not be surprising to me. So you'll need (Xm^3)/24 volume per crew member regardless. It's not huge, the volume I used above means 1m^3 per person dedicated to centrifuge. Still, non-trivial.

NO, the inflatableness reduces the mass considerably.

Keeping these things there would be kind of like building space toilets. You need a lot for a colony, but they are kind of necessary, and aren't hugely heavy.

Either way, carrying 100 of these would mean 800 people can use them. Unfortunately, we lack information on what Nautilius-X's centrifuge's mass is. However, if we assume the mass is 6T for each module, that means a 600 T requirement. That sounds like a lot, until you consider those 800 people would need 5333 T of living space. That is almost certainly a gross underestimation, as they also need pressurized rovers, supplies, equipment (you know, to do work), and likely far more BA-330s for things like greenhouses. 10000T sounds more reasonable for the entire mass of the colony.

No, this mass is not trivial, but it really is the only way one would easily do this on the Moon. It's still much easier than Mars, and likely easier than trying to build an O'Neil Cylinder.

[IncongruousGoat]

5 hours ago, MatttheCzar said:

I feel a moon colony is more feasable.  Less danger, cheaper shipping, same opportunites for "Pinot Lunar", etc.

Not really. The delta-v needed to go to Mars is not that much more than the delta-v needed to go to the moon-and at Mars you can use aerobraking to capture. Less danger? Maybe. But probably not. Both don't have a substantial atmosphere, and both are bombarded by cosmic rays. If anything, Mars is safer on that count-farther from the sun. Furthermore, Mars has more chemical diversity in its atmosphere and soil. This makes it better for producing the basics-breathable air, water, etc. Beyond that, the temperatures are really extreme on the moon. Some of the craters that are permanently in shadow at the bottom have temperatures in the shade so cold as to make common structural metals dangerously brittle. Mars, on the other hand, has an average temperature of -63 degrees C. Bad, but workable. Furthermore, the moon doesn't have anything to offer in terms of mineralogical resources. It's crust is mostly composed of silica, alumina, lime, and iron oxide-all of which are common on Earth as is. Admittedly neither does Mars. However, martian soil has higher prospects for farmability than lunar soil. Anyone trying to mine the asteroid belt is going to want food, and Mars is as good a place to grow it as any.

 

Neither has great economic prospects, but at least Mars has something.

[MatttheCzar]

I definitely think people are more likely to fund and support a moonbase, even just because it seems closer.  Also, there is less of a signal delay and travel time is much lower.  If the base needs to be evacuated, it can be done in a decent time frame.

[tater]

While dv requirements are similar between Earth -> Moon and Earth ->Mars, the distances are vastly greater, with commensurately longer travel times. As a result, what you have to give this similar dv is vastly different, so the total energy budget is no where near the same. If we were only talking about a 1000kg probe, then yeah, about the same rocket will do the job. A craft capable of taking 10 people to the lunar surface from LEO, OTOH, would be substantially less complicated and lighter, as a few days of life support is not as logistically complicated as a few years of life support.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Not really. The delta-v needed to go to Mars is not that much more than the delta-v needed to go to the moon-and at Mars you can use aerobraking to capture. Less danger? Maybe. But probably not. Both don't have a substantial atmosphere, and both are bombarded by cosmic rays. If anything, Mars is safer on that count-farther from the sun. Furthermore, Mars has more chemical diversity in its atmosphere and soil. This makes it better for producing the basics-breathable air, water, etc. Beyond that, the temperatures are really extreme on the moon. Some of the craters that are permanently in shadow at the bottom have temperatures in the shade so cold as to make common structural metals dangerously brittle. Mars, on the other hand, has an average temperature of -63 degrees C. Bad, but workable. Furthermore, the moon doesn't have anything to offer in terms of mineralogical resources. It's crust is mostly composed of silica, alumina, lime, and iron oxide-all of which are common on Earth as is. Admittedly neither does Mars. However, martian soil has higher prospects for farmability than lunar soil. Anyone trying to mine the asteroid belt is going to want food, and Mars is as good a place to grow it as any.

 

Neither has great economic prospects, but at least Mars has something.

The Moon has lots of trace, valuable minerals, as it has been impacted by asteroids for nearly its entire life. All those minerals have built up on the surface.

[DBowman]

On 1/25/2016 at 1:44 PM, Finox said:

Yes, but asteroid mining operations are less self sufficient than a Mars base.   So the best place from which to supply an asteroid mining operation is wherever its cheapest to launch from.   With 38% of the gravity and 1% of the atmosphere of Earth, Mars is clearly better to launch from.   It's cheaper to launch the heavy equipment for an asteroid mine from Mars then from Earth, significantly so if you do the math.   Again as I've been doing repeatedly in this thread, I recommend you read "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin, he has a section on this topic and a chart showing how much easier it is to launch to the asteroid belt from Mars compared with Earth.

... once Earth and Mars have equivalent infrastructure & manpower available to construct and launch the equipment. For some 'near Earth delivered mass' & time goals it might/probably would be more efficient / cheaper to launch asteroidal industry from Earth. Similarly it's not clear that it's cheaper to bootstrap Mars than to bootstrap Asteroid industry directly.

I'm concerned to find a 'driver', something that will drive capital off Earth. Once there is significant activity 'off Earth' then it's clear there is an opportunity for things like 'Luna H2O' etc. Platinum might be a money spinner after the market was greatly expanded by finding new uses for cheap Platinum (like Aluminium), but probably satisfying the current market without crashing it is not lucrative enough to drive capital 'off Earth'. What does Earth need now that 'off Earth has'? What would people invest capital in today off Earth to get a near term return?

[fredinno]

13 minutes ago, DBowman said:

... once Earth and Mars have equivalent infrastructure & manpower available to construct and launch the equipment. For some 'near Earth delivered mass' & time goals it might/probably would be more efficient / cheaper to launch asteroidal industry from Earth. Similarly it's not clear that it's cheaper to bootstrap Mars than to bootstrap Asteroid industry directly.

I'm concerned to find a 'driver', something that will drive capital off Earth. Once there is significant activity 'off Earth' then it's clear there is an opportunity for things like 'Luna H2O' etc. Platinum might be a money spinner after the market was greatly expanded by finding new uses for cheap Platinum (like Aluminium), but probably satisfying the current market without crashing it is not lucrative enough to drive capital 'off Earth'. What does Earth need now that 'off Earth has'? What would people invest capital in today off Earth to get a near term return?

Not really anything yet, otherwise it would be taking off.

[tater]

The lunar bases guys in the 90s were always hoping for a fusion economy, and were postulating lunar mining for tritium.

 

[fredinno]

17 minutes ago, tater said:

The lunar bases guys in the 90s were always hoping for a fusion economy, and were postulating lunar mining for tritium.

 

Fat chance that will happen. We have less of an idea how to He3 fusion than we have to H2 H3.

[Red Fang]

I'd try to explore a different angle on the whole export thing...

 

To export anything from anywhere, in a broader sense, the property does not need to change physical location, only property rights have to be switched to an external entity. That way any permanent Martian society will at first be able to sell goods on Mars that can be competitive to goods shipped from Earth. I'd guess food and water (fuel, oxygen to cut down on amount of gear needed to recycle those?) would be first, then recycled/virgin metal and after that locally produced items of increasing complexity (structural elements, tools, pressure vessels, habs, rovers, electric motors...), including IP. Eventually,  when (if)  the martian population gets high enough (millions) Mars will be able to have a full range of technologies that are produced on Earth, and start physically exporting manufactured goods - ie. spaceships made in LMO. I'd expect this development to take centuries, at least. So, in this view, most of financial transactions would be happening on Earth, without money leaving it, while Mars-bound missions would be buying as much of the needed supplies and equipment at lower, local, Martian prices, therefore depressing costs of going to Mars and spending time there. 

How you start permanently populating Mars and how you go around economics of that, beats me.  

[tater]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Fat chance that will happen. We have less of an idea how to He3 fusion than we have to H2 H3.

Yeah, just as much of a pipe dream as it was then. I was just pointing out that an economy has always been the problem

For Earth SoI, solar power is the best bet, still. But while in the 70s they imagined colonies full of people to make solar power stations, it would be robots, and far fewer people involved, instead.

[fredinno]

48 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, just as much of a pipe dream as it was then. I was just pointing out that an economy has always been the problem

For Earth SoI, solar power is the best bet, still. But while in the 70s they imagined colonies full of people to make solar power stations, it would be robots, and far fewer people involved, instead.

IMpliying space solar is economical in the first place. First reason is that you have to put these in GEO...

[tater]

World power growth is at least somewhat predictable, though terrestrial solar while less efficient is so much cheaper space doesn't look good. I'm trying to find something  that looks plausible  GEO is about as far as you can go for that.

[Nibb31]

 

On 25/1/2016 at 2:56 AM, Finox said:

I would refer you to Zubrin's "The case for Mars" to refute most of what you say, read it and let me know what you think.   The problems you layout are not as big as you think they are, I know things like agriculture and manufacturing are foreign to the majority of westerners who aren't involved in them on a daily basis.   However it is possible to harvest materiel's and make things without the full spectrum of modern technology.  

The case for Mars is not a bible. It has been scrutinized for years and most experts agree that Zubrin's proposals are overly optimistic. a lot of it might look nice in theory, but when you get into the nitty-gritty details of actual engineering, implementation cycles, technology readiness levels, and of course the politics and economics, it is not so simple. Things don't all work as planned.

It certainly is possible to harvest chemical elements pretty much anywhere and to synthesize them into pretty much any material you need in a lab, but when it comes to building the actual systems that do that work reliably, automatically, in extreme environments, with minimal maintenance, it's far more complicated than it seems. 

As I said in my previous post, we haven't even designed a life-supporting closed habitat or a self-sufficient universal factory on Earth. Such systems would already be immensely complex to develop here, so let's get those technologies to a sufficient TRL, and then we can start talking about sending humans who will rely on them to stay alive on another planet. 

Until then, the Case for Mars is just conjecture.

Quote

Human's are creative creatures they can improvise with limited resources, its what we've done throughout our entire history as a species, why not on Mars?

You can't improvise when basic life support is dependent on extremely complex technology. Humans could improvise on Earth, because you can breath pretty much everywhere and you can live and grow stuff anywhere that there is water. Mars is a whole different ball game. You need advanced systems just to keep on breathing, and growing food will depend on complex mining processes, water purification, soil detoxication and imported fertilizers. There is no improvisation there.

Quote

I must ask if you think going to Mars for the sake of science is worthwhile?   I think what we can learn a great deal from studying another planet, isn't that reason enough to go there?   With what we spend maintaining bases in Antarctica, surely we can maintain a base on Mars for research purposes.   With Martian launch windows occurring about every 2 years, the incentive to produce as much as you can locally will be immense, you'll be surprised how creative people get in solving those problems.   It's not like a new Martian base or colony would be anything like what you're used to on Earth.   It would be a fairly spartan.

Yes, I believe that it might make sense to have a scientific outpost on Mars, but colonies and settlements are just science fiction.

However, the only science that you'll get from having humans living on Mars is limited to studying how to get humans to live on Mars. It's circular and pointless unless you have another reason to have humans living on Mars, which we don't.

Of course it would be spartan. Living there would be somewhere between Scott-Amundsen Station in Antarctica and a submarine. People won't be lining up to move there permanently and raise families. And you have no idea how many orders of magnitude more expensive maintaining an outpost on Mars would be compared to Scott-Amundsen.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

To be fair the primary "Case for Mars" is the case for NASA to visit Mars, that's entirely different than colonizing Mars.

As to the science... any science we can do in the solar system via landing humans is better done by robots (except for the science of how humans function in whatever environment, obviously). The reason to send people to Mars (which I'm fine with, BTW) is honestly psychological more than anything else, and any science that is accelerated by having a geologist on-site is just gravy.

There is real value to humanity at large in exploring, and from seeing human beings walking on other worlds. I'm all-in for manned spaceflight to do something inspiring, just because. 

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

 

The case for Mars is not a bible. It has been scrutinized for years and most experts agree that Zubrin's proposals are overly optimistic. a lot of it might look nice in theory, but when you get into the nitty-gritty details of actual engineering, implementation cycles, technology readiness levels, and of course the politics and economics, it is not so simple. Things don't all work as planned.

It certainly is possible to harvest chemical elements pretty much anywhere and to synthesize them into pretty much any material you need in a lab, but when it comes to building the actual systems that do that work reliably, automatically, in extreme environments, with minimal maintenance, it's far more complicated than it seems. 

As I said in my previous post, we haven't even designed a life-supporting closed habitat or a self-sufficient universal factory on Earth. Such systems would already be immensely complex to develop here, so let's get those technologies to a sufficient TRL, and then we can start talking about sending humans who will rely on them to stay alive on another planet. 

Until then, the Case for Mars is just conjecture.

You can't improvise when basic life support is dependent on extremely complex technology. Humans could improvise on Earth, because you can breath pretty much everywhere and you can live and grow stuff anywhere that there is water. Mars is a whole different ball game. You need advanced systems just to keep on breathing, and growing food will depend on complex mining processes, water purification, soil detoxication and imported fertilizers. There is no improvisation there.

Yes, I believe that it might make sense to have a scientific outpost on Mars, but colonies and settlements are just science fiction.

However, the only science that you'll get from having humans living on Mars is limited to studying how to get humans to live on Mars. It's circular and pointless unless you have another reason to have humans living on Mars, which we don't.

Of course it would be spartan. Living there would be somewhere between Scott-Amundsen Station in Antarctica and a submarine. People won't be lining up to move there permanently and raise families. And you have no idea how many orders of magnitude more expensive maintaining an outpost on Mars would be compared to Scott-Amundsen.

I think we will colonize Mars- such a tang eliding destination will not be left forever. But that's something best kept to the next century, realistically.

1 hour ago, tater said:

To be fair the primary "Case for Mars" is the case for NASA to visit Mars, that's entirely different than colonizing Mars.

As to the science... any science we can do in the solar system via landing humans is better done by robots (except for the science of how humans function in whatever environment, obviously). The reason to send people to Mars (which I'm fine with, BTW) is honestly psychological more than anything else, and any science that is accelerated by having a geologist on-site is just gravy.

There is real value to humanity at large in exploring, and from seeing human beings walking on other worlds. I'm all-in for manned spaceflight to do something inspiring, just because. 

The Apollo landings returned enormous amounts of science in their 3 day max . Missions.

Manned missions are basically like Ultra-flagship missions- they return even more science than flagship, but are damn expensive.

[tater]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

IThe Apollo landings returned enormous amounts of science in their 3 day max . Missions.

Manned missions are basically like Ultra-flagship missions- they return even more science than flagship, but are damn expensive.

They did not return more science than robots would given the same amount of money spent.

Take sample return as an example. Apollo brought back hundreds of kgs. People often compare the tiny amount returned by robots as a "gotcha!" If we could return the mass of 2 people, plus all their gear, LS, and redundant systems for their safety, PLUS a few hundred kg of samples, a robot could have delivered the same mass of samples PLUS the mass of all the systems that were only there to keep the people alive (plus the people). The sample return would have at least doubled, I'd bet. Assuming you need a robot rover to drive around, and it masses the same as 2 astronauts or more, then maybe you approach breaking even, but you approach that from the "better" side, not the worse side. Bottom line is that the only reason Apollo did so much science was that it had a huge budget both in terms of cash, and in terms of mass delivered and returned from the lunar surface. The same budget in both would give the win to robots.

I'm not super happy to say this, BTW, Jack Schmitt taught a section of a class I took on lunar geology, and it was cool to sit in a room with maybe 15 other people and a geologist who had been on the Moon and get to pick his brain . With modern technology, the geologist could have a remote presence that would be far better than real time TV in 1970 could do.

Edited January 26, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

21 minutes ago, tater said:

They did not return more science than robots would given the same amount of money spent.

Take sample return as an example. Apollo brought back hundreds of kgs. People often compare the tiny amount returned by robots as a "gotcha!" If we could return the mass of 2 people, plus all their gear, LS, and redundant systems for their safety, PLUS a few hundred kg of samples, a robot could have delivered the same mass of samples PLUS the mass of all the systems that were only there to keep the people alive (plus the people). The sample return would have at least doubled, I'd bet. Assuming you need a robot rover to drive around, and it masses the same as 2 astronauts or more, then maybe you approach breaking even, but you approach that from the "better" side, not the worse side. Bottom line is that the only reason Apollo did so much science was that it had a huge budget both in terms of cash, and in terms of mass delivered and returned from the lunar surface. The same budget in both would give the win to robots.

I'm not super happy to say this, BTW, Jack Schmitt taught a section of a class I took on lunar geology, and it was cool to sit in a room with maybe 15 other people and a geologist who had been on the Moon and get to pick his brain . With modern technology, the geologist could have a remote presence that would be far better than real time TV in 1970 could do.

Humans would likely do more though, as they can make much faster decisions on the fly, being sentient. You do not have to wait 22 minutes to do the communications from Mars one way due to time delay. And a robot mission that big and advanced, you might as well sent humans and get the extra positive inspiration effect on people on Earth. Teleoperation has limitations- the main being it's a lot slower.

[tater]

I was talking about the Moon, not Mars. For Mars, I think that orbiting and then operating robots would still deliver "more science." as for the same mass as a human facility dropped to the surface you could land multiple ROVs. You could also possibly land places you would never risk people. Even if we were to land people, it would make sense to piggyback probes that we could put places on Mars that are very interesting, but not "safe" even for a robot.

[Finox]

17 hours ago, DBowman said:

... once Earth and Mars have equivalent infrastructure & manpower available to construct and launch the equipment. For some 'near Earth delivered mass' & time goals it might/probably would be more efficient / cheaper to launch asteroidal industry from Earth. Similarly it's not clear that it's cheaper to bootstrap Mars than to bootstrap Asteroid industry directly.

I'm concerned to find a 'driver', something that will drive capital off Earth. Once there is significant activity 'off Earth' then it's clear there is an opportunity for things like 'Luna H2O' etc. Platinum might be a money spinner after the market was greatly expanded by finding new uses for cheap Platinum (like Aluminium), but probably satisfying the current market without crashing it is not lucrative enough to drive capital 'off Earth'. What does Earth need now that 'off Earth has'? What would people invest capital in today off Earth to get a near term return?

I was really thinking more in terms of Mars as a resupply point for asteroid mining, not necessarily a launching point.   What it boils down to is launch costs; a rocket launched from the surface of Mars requires 4.0 km/s to reach low orbit while one from Earth requires 9.0 km/s.   In economic terms that is an absolute advantage, so sure you don't NEED to settle Mars to mine the asteroids, but once you do it makes more sense to resupply asteroid bases from Mars than Earth!

I suppose the difference between you and me ( and likely others in this thread) is that I don't think you need a clear-cut economic driver to settle Mars.   The attraction of a new frontier is the opportunity to start anew without the constraints of the old world.   Mars offers that, and more, its just getting a start on it that's the hard part.   As for the question of what space has that Earth lacks?   Good question, it likely warrants its own thread.

[HebaruSan]

20 minutes ago, Finox said:

I suppose the difference between you and me (and likely others in this thread) is that I don't think you need a clear-cut economic driver to settle Mars. The attraction of a new frontier is the opportunity to start anew without the constraints of the old world. Mars offers that, and more, its just getting a start on it that's the hard part.

As was already pointed out, the old world is far less constraining. On Earth the ubiquitous biosphere offers the option to leave town, build a shack in the woods, and live off the land. On Mars you have no choice but to stay involved with and in the good graces of whomever controls the life support system of the habitation modules and the imports of essentials from Earth.

And either way, we still haven't identified a reason for any institution capable of paying the bills to do so. A Mars colony is not going to materialize out of thin air via the grit and gumption and stick-to-it-iveness of a few hundred volunteers, no matter how enthusiastic they may be.

[DBowman]

2015 global electricity usage was about 20 TWh. Lets say there are 1B 'high energy users' today, let say we want poverty elimination / 'bringing everyone up to that level' - by the time that happens demand would be 8 - 10 x - so say 200 TWh, maybe by then 'high' would be higher also...

Current power costs USD / MWh ( eia.gov levelized costs attempts to account for construction and running costs ):

• 095 nuclear
• 140 gas
• 125 solar PV
• 240 solar thermal
• 074 wind

At USD 100 / MWh that's 2 B USD per annum current costs, 20 B 'goal usage' - Apple does like 55 B USD per quarter. But if you could do price competitive orbital solar then I guess there would be 180 - 360 B investable at a 5-10% return (one or two ISSs).

The numbers above makes orbital solar look like a 'small' market. I guess I have to do more research; levelized maybe doesn't make sense as the only measure, I ignored coal, probably there is other energy use that could be substituted by electricity (e.g. oil for transport), de-carbonization cost impact etc.

I recently read some HESPeruS details; uses 'special' stable Molniyar orbits to give GEO like properties at half the insert to orbit cost, Skylon launch costs, highly modular scheme with massive repetition of 25mm scale PV+microwave transmit 'unit's - claims nuclear cost competitive ( some info and references )

[HebaruSan]

On 1/26/2016 at 9:03 AM, Nibb31 said:

As I said in my previous post, we haven't even designed a life-supporting closed habitat or a self-sufficient universal factory on Earth. Such systems would already be immensely complex to develop here, so let's get those technologies to a sufficient TRL, and then we can start talking about sending humans who will rely on them to stay alive on another planet. 

This spurred me to read up a little on Biosphere 2 (and related projects), which was interesting, so thanks for that. In case anyone doubts the difficulty of such a project and isn't up on the history: Apparently the first time around, B2 had a mysterious gradual decrease in O₂, but without a corresponding increase in CO₂, and eventually some folks at Columbia determined it was reacting with the concrete to form calcium carbonate (CaCO₃)! Luckily they were on Earth, so they had the option to cheat by pumping in more oxygen.

[Nibb31]

Exactly. Which not only proves the complexity of such a task, but also how fragile such a closed loop environment would be. It's all so easy to claim that we have it all figured out in theory, but when it comes to engineering the actual systems, there are always things that you forgot to model or that weren't accounted for. Of course, the slightest imbalance can cause your a huge catastrophe, like runaway CO2 levels or losing your crops.