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

[Nibb31]

50 minutes ago, fredinno said:

The thing is, that kind of science has much more immediate financial returns, NASA science does not- making it much harder to financially justify.

You can make them from Earth too.

A manned mission has better public stigma, and is more likely to be funded. And flagship robotic missions are not as good as you make them out to be. You might be able to make a hopper covering the entire Marian surface for less than a manned mission, (as risky as that would be) but robotic rovers are VERY slow. They can go faster, but that means a larger, more expensive rover. And even then you would need numerous missions to cover all of Mars.

Again, who cares if they are slow. Mars isn't going anywhere. But they are slow because they are small and light and low-powered. There is no reason why you couldn't build an unmanned rover on the exact same chassis as a manned SEV. You could even build a self-driving dune buggy if it made any sense. It would still be cheaper and lighter than a manned SEV, because it wouldn't have to carry all that life support stuff and it could carry more science equipment instead.

On the other hand, going slow has its advantages. It means that you won't miss something important. A human might go faster, but is more likely to miss a tiny rock on the ground.

And you could actually afford numerous missions because it would be orders of magnitude cheaper.

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The only problem with teleoperation is that Mars has a time delay of at least thirteen minutes, and spacecraft have a limited lifetime too. Oppurtunity is likely the exception of Mars rover endurance, not the norm. Latency is a big deal when every major command takes thirteen minutes to get to the craft, then another thirteen coming back. You can bypass this by teleoperating from a Mars Moon, but at that point, it's probably not worth it.

Yes, but is the lack of latency alone worth spending billions more and risking lives? In the future, latency can also be countered by better AI. We already have automatic drones and self-driving cars. Who knows what technology will be available in 10 or 20 years? You could imagine a robot/drone that could autonomously 3D scan a wide area where you could walk around in HD VR to determine the places that are worthy of a closer look, and then send a sampling robot to get detailed data or samples from those places of interest. That's just an example.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't send people in the long term. I'm just saying that science as the only justification is not good enough. The only science benefit of sending people to Mars is to learn about sending people to Mars, which is interesting, but circular.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Nibb31

[DBowman]

11 hours ago, fredinno said:

The only problem with teleoperation is that Mars has a time delay of at least thirteen minutes

Zubrin's Athena was an interesting way to deal with Mars latency ( pdf ). The idea is to do an E-M1-M2-E flyby trajectory; a single Mars injection burn, 9 month cruise, M1 gravity assist kicks the craft off the ecliptic and into a 'Mars shadowing' orbit for about a year, M2 gravity assist throws the craft back toward earth for another 9 month cruise, splashdown in a capsule.

The good features:

• Minimal burns after the initial TMI => boil-off is not a worry
• The craft spends about a year 'near' Mars, months within 10 light seconds for VR, teleoperation, etc.
• No need for cost, development time, & risk of Mars EDL and landing
• It seems like the cheapest and easiest manned mission that adds something science wise to robot mission

[tater]

^^^ that makes a lot of sense, actually. The thing to do would be to spam a few different rovers around, too, to make maximum use of crew time. Of course some of the vehicles would need to be substantially faster than current designs since they won;t have many years to commute to a new location.

[Rakaydos]

Even for manned missions, it has many of the benifits of a Cycler Habitat- By putting all the high-mass stuff on the mothership into this kind or orbit, it doesnt need to do a martian insertion while letting the slimmed down lander handle taking the crew to pre=prepared martian habitaats, until the mothership comes around again.

[Admac]

Lots of cool things Mars could export to earth!

There are kind of two reasons mars would care about earth money, one to repay investments, and two to buy Earth goods for Martian consumption.

With permanent deep space transports ships doing to journey every window, as per the SpaceX colonization plan,, the freight costs would be pleasingly low. The ships need to return to Earth to take on more colonists and supplies, and would otherwise be travelling back empty. 

Small Colony phase (under 5000 people)

-Science and samples, lots of organizations would pay a lot of money for interesting samples to be returned, collected by scientists on Mars

-Cool TV shows about how living on ANOTHER PLANET is. It would be probably worth far more than the Olympics, and networks bid billions for the broadcast rights to those. This is the sole income source envisioned by Mars One.

-Novelties. Literally anything from Mars would be worth a mint on Earth. eBay would go bananas for a shirt worn on Mars, and I am sure the world would be flooded in 10 billion fakes.

 

Big Colony phase (Over 5000)

-Patents. Most people going to mars would be pretty educated so it's far to assume mars would produce more interesting patents and advances than any other small town ever has. This would flow back as tech that can be licensed to terrestrial manufacturers.

-light manufactured goods. If it's tiny and can be made better in 1/3 G and is worth more than about $2000 a kilo, it would be economical to ship back.

-Sweet Mars videos. Low Gee sports leagues, Lonely (Red) Planet, This Old Aeroponics Dome, Martian dune buggy racing , low gee strippers and the like would be enough to float entire mars based network.

-Art. Even the most terrible art would be worth a fortune if it were from Mars, since there is such an guaranteed notoriety and scarcity.

 

I don't think that from the point of view of the economy of Earth, the investment will be paid off for close to a hundred years, but there would be absolutely unique additions to human culture and science that I for one feel would be worth it at almost any cost. Also having the infrastructure to move thousands of people to Mars would mean developing a space based infrastructure that would yield all sorts of more immediate advantages for the homeworld.

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by Admac

[Finox]

16 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You shouldn't oppose robotic exploration vs manned exploration. In the end, all exploration is driven by humans. We just use the proper tools for the job. Some jobs allow boots on the ground, but human exploration with tools such as telescopes, sensors and robots just as valid.

I'm not against robotic exploration, but it has its limits and I think you underestimate those.   A rover that covers only a couple hundred meters a day isn't going to look at as many rocks as a human.

16 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

First, Martian rocks aren't going anywhere, so the latency is no big deal. Actually, since a robot moves rather slowly over the terrain with a whole array of sensors followed by a whole team of geologists, there are actually less chances that it will miss something than if you have a single human geologist with a single set of eyes, who also has to handle the task of navigating, watching his O2 supply, and not falling over.

I find this argument bizarre; do you have trouble with falling over when you walk?    Again, if you compare how much we learned in the Apollo landings with how much we've learned from robotic Mars exploration I can't see how you can draw the conclusion that robotic missions aren't drastically slower.   The latency alone adds hours to simple tasks like moving 5 feet to a rock and looking at it.   A human doesn't have that problem.

16 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Second, there is no reason that by the time we get the technology required to build an outpost on Mars, we won't also have the technology for better AI and VR to both make the robot autonomous and to provide a shared experience close to actually being there. Surgeons in hospitals already use teleoperation for remote surgical operations. There is a slight latency, but it can be handled by the system and by the surgeon. In the future, a robot could record and extrapolate a 3D map of its environment that an operator could explore in VR and decide what is worth taking a closer look at. We use robots on Earth as tools for exploring extreme environments all the time, because it makes sense to preserve human life rather than to go to the expense of putting it in danger. You can argue that a manned lab would be more versatile, but there is really nothing preventing you from designing a teleoperated lab with the exact same versatility as a manned one. You could have something like a teleoperated Robonaut running the lab and fixing the fleet of rovers and sweeping solar panels, without all the pesky life support and the heavy launcher to bring everything back.

I don't understand how you think a few advances in teleoperations technologies will get around the latency issue.   The lag for a surgeon on Earth is miniscule compared to the lag for a NASA technician trying to move his rover on Mars.   A signal takes 3-21 minutes one way, that's not something you can wave away with a little automation.   Or are you afraid to risk the lives of astronauts?

16 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Yes, an outpost and two rovers, like the Ares missions in The Martian. 100 tons on the ground. I get it. It is still limited to a small area and a short period. The rover will always have a limited safety range and the humans will always have a limited supply. If one of your rovers becomes inoperable, that range means walking distance. And you can't grow potatos in Martian regolith.

The cost of such an expedition would still be orders of magnitude higher than a fleet of telepresence robots that could cover the entire surface for well over 2 years. There is simply no science that can be done with a human that couldn't also be done by a properly designed teleoperated system.

No, Mars direct is nothing like the Ares missions in "The Martian".   Here's the original paper on it but again the book has a much more detailed description.   http://www.marspapers.org/papers/Zubrin_1991.pdf

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree at this point, unless you want to wait 5 days to continue (I have vacation scheduled this next week and I'm not checking my email for anything).   Beyond that you just don't seem willing to accept my answers and I certainly don't find your to be persuasive.   All the same it's been interesting debating you, best wishes!

[Finox]

15 hours ago, fredinno said:

The thing is, that kind of science has much more immediate financial returns, NASA science does not- making it much harder to financially justify.

Studying geology on Earth yields returns both economically and scientifically, I have to believe the same would be true of Mars as well.   For example; when looking for something like oil and gas you want to know what the rock layers are made of and where the fault lines are so you can figure out where minerals might be trapped.   When looking for copper you look for sulfate deposits, which usually occur around areas with past or present volcanic activity.   Figuring out the underlying geology of an area is important to figuring out where economically viable deposits of minerals might be.

So a NASA geologist will be collecting samples and conducting surveys for the sake of science, but they'll inevitably stumble upon evidence of mineral deposits of one type or another just by figuring out the story of Mars itself.

[quyxkh]

"Madam, of what use is a newborn child?"

Maybe it turns out there's stuff that's ridiculously easy to make in 1/3G.  Maybe pet rocks come back into fashion.  Maybe musical instruments sound weird, and we get new genres.  Maybe seeing a red sky at noon but blue sunsets and dawns, with sometimes a tiny pale dot in the sky in the morning, behind the pretty young woman saying with outrage and horror "what the (Forceful Unacceptable Cursing-Kind of word here) are you doing!!!?!?!?!?!???!!!!!!!" stops world war three.  Maybe trying to keep clocks in sync between Mars and Earth teaches us something new about how to build complex systems.  Maybe there's life on mars just waiting for some incautious irrigation in the wrong spot. Maybe some weird competition between Martian and Terran architects gets going and we get pictures of reality that make the covers of 1940's science fiction books look timid.  Maybe once an Aldrin cycler starts running that Martian wine isn't so horribly expensive any more.

Lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzhSmnGcSkEThis was the next on the playlist in my search results for that video.

Maybe the struggle to terraform just a few acres of Mars teaches us how to replicate the experience anywhere in the Universe.  Maybe we decide we're not going to find indigenous life on Mars, or we don't care so very much that we wouldn't rather see what Earth life can do with a little help, and we turn bacteria and kittens loose to see what happens.  Maybe that's a great place for Planetary Resources to process some asteroids.

Edited January 30, 2016 by quyxkh
(AI wouldn't recognize appropriate expletive, sigh)

[Bill Phil]

The thing about terraforming (other than being a cool, but very hard thing to do) is that you can't just terraform one spot, you have to do it to the WHOLE PLANET. Life pretty much IS the biosphere, and each part of the biosphere is dependent upon others. The matter is a question of scale. A bigger biosphere, the better.

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, Admac said:

Small Colony phase (under 5000 people)

-Science and samples, lots of organizations would pay a lot of money for interesting samples to be returned, collected by scientists on Mars

-Cool TV shows about how living on ANOTHER PLANET is. It would be probably worth far more than the Olympics, and networks bid billions for the broadcast rights to those. This is the sole income source envisioned by Mars One.

-Novelties. Literally anything from Mars would be worth a mint on Earth. eBay would go bananas for a shirt worn on Mars, and I am sure the world would be flooded in 10 billion fakes.

Not worth it to build a colony.

5 hours ago, Admac said:

Big Colony phase (Over 5000)

-Patents. Most people going to mars would be pretty educated so it's far to assume mars would produce more interesting patents and advances than any other small town ever has. This would flow back as tech that can be licensed to terrestrial manufacturers.

-light manufactured goods. If it's tiny and can be made better in 1/3 G and is worth more than about $2000 a kilo, it would be economical to ship back.

-Sweet Mars videos. Low Gee sports leagues, Lonely (Red) Planet, This Old Aeroponics Dome, Martian dune buggy racing , low gee strippers and the like would be enough to float entire mars based network.

-Art. Even the most terrible art would be worth a fortune if it were from Mars, since there is such an guaranteed notoriety and scarcity.

This is sounding like justification for a pointless (at this point, and economically) Mars Colony. And you can manufacture goods inside a spun space station with a counterweight.

4 hours ago, Finox said:

Studying geology on Earth yields returns both economically and scientifically, I have to believe the same would be true of Mars as well.   For example; when looking for something like oil and gas you want to know what the rock layers are made of and where the fault lines are so you can figure out where minerals might be trapped.   When looking for copper you look for sulfate deposits, which usually occur around areas with past or present volcanic activity.   Figuring out the underlying geology of an area is important to figuring out where economically viable deposits of minerals might be.

So a NASA geologist will be collecting samples and conducting surveys for the sake of science, but they'll inevitably stumble upon evidence of mineral deposits of one type or another just by figuring out the story of Mars itself.

Does that matter when we've already established Asteroid Mining is much cheaper than Mars Mining? There's a reason Planetary Resources is looking to mine asteroids, not Mars- it's a lot cheaper. In that sense, Mars Mining will likely only occur much later, and NASA Mars geology is a long-term investment with few immediate gains.

[Nibb31]

10 hours ago, Finox said:

I'm not against robotic exploration, but it has its limits and I think you underestimate those.   A rover that covers only a couple hundred meters a day isn't going to look at as many rocks as a human.

No, but 10 rovers that cover the same distance 12 hours a day over 5 years are going to give you a wider variety of samples than a single human stumbling around a limited area for 2 hours a day for 6 months.

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I find this argument bizarre; do you have trouble with falling over when you walk?    Again, if you compare how much we learned in the Apollo landings with how much we've learned from robotic Mars exploration I can't see how you can draw the conclusion that robotic missions aren't drastically slower.   The latency alone adds hours to simple tasks like moving 5 feet to a rock and looking at it.   A human doesn't have that problem.

You are underestimating how hard it was for the Apollo astronauts to move around. Don't be fooled by the weightlessness. The lunar EVAs were exhausting, and one of the major concerns was that if an astronaut actually fell over, they would have a hell of a time getting up. The regolith being abrasive was a major concern too.

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I don't understand how you think a few advances in teleoperations technologies will get around the latency issue.   The lag for a surgeon on Earth is miniscule compared to the lag for a NASA technician trying to move his rover on Mars.   A signal takes 3-21 minutes one way, that's not something you can wave away with a little automation.   Or are you afraid to risk the lives of astronauts?

Yes, robots are slower, but 1) they don't have to be, and 2) who cares if they are slow. Mars isn't going anywhere and there is no rush. 

We have latency on Earth when you have engineering teams split up between various countries in different time zones. You send instructions and get the results the next day. As long as the robot has enough AI to avoid putting itself in danger, it's no big deal. We can handle it. Sure, it would be nice to get the results faster, but is that speed worth paying 1000x the price if you get the same results in the end.

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No, Mars direct is nothing like the Ares missions in "The Martian".   Here's the original paper on it but again the book has a much more detailed description.   http://www.marspapers.org/papers/Zubrin_1991.pdf

FFS, we already know about Zubrin TYVM. There's no point in posting it again and again, especially the 1991 paper which has been dismissed even by Zubrin himself as overly optimistic. Zubrin cooperated again with various Mars DRMs, which have all ended up being both too big to be sustainable and too optimistic at the same time, which is quite an accomplishment.

Quote

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree at this point, 

Don't worry about that, I'm used to it

Edited January 30, 2016 by Nibb31

[tater]

Comparing robots to Apollo is a bad argument. Apollo did a lot not because it was humans (and one a geologist) doing the work, but because it had a massive budget and support of the government. That is the sole reason Apollo did more than robots. Given the same resources, Robot-Apollo would have done MORE science with robots than real Apollo did with people. There is no science you can name on Mars that could not be done remotely. There is no science you could do with people on Mars that could not be done better with robots given the same resources to accomplish them.

The reality is that manned spaceflight is not done for science, but for excitement/adventure/flash. Manned flight is also vastly more expensive to do for any given science goal. Probes will not get the budget that manned flight will get. Look at the Senate Launch System and Orion. A rocket without a purpose to launch a spacecraft without a purpose. Science will benefit as NASA is forced to build stuff to put on top of a ridiculously large rocket, but the only reason they have the rocket is to launch a manned craft. That craft, Orion, has as a first mission going off to do something that could be better done by a robot at far less cost/risk. Bottom line is that any science benefits from manned spaceflight are in fact just gravy, not actually the point.

Edited January 30, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

No, but 10 rovers that cover the same distance 12 hours a day over 5 years are going to give you a wider variety of samples than a single human stumbling around a limited area for 2 hours a day for 6 months.

You are underestimating how hard it was for the Apollo astronauts to move around. Don't be fooled by the weightlessness. The lunar EVAs were exhausting, and one of the major concerns was that if an astronaut actually fell over, they would have a hell of a time getting up. The regolith being abrasive was a major concern too.

Yes, robots are slower, but 1) they don't have to be, and 2) who cares if they are slow. Mars isn't going anywhere and there is no rush. 

We have latency on Earth when you have engineering teams split up between various countries in different time zones. You send instructions and get the results the next day. As long as the robot has enough AI to avoid putting itself in danger, it's no big deal. We can handle it. Sure, it would be nice to get the results faster, but is that speed worth paying 1000x the price if you get the same results in the end.

FFS, we already know about Zubrin TYVM. There's no point in posting it again and again, especially the 1991 paper which has been dismissed even by Zubrin himself as overly optimistic. Zubrin cooperated again with various Mars DRMs, which have all ended up being both too big to be sustainable and too optimistic at the same time, which is quite an accomplishment.

Don't worry about that, I'm used to it

The Apollo suits were too top heavy, so that was why EVAs were so difficult. New suits are a lot better.

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

The Apollo suits were too top heavy, so that was why EVAs were so difficult. New suits are a lot better.

How resistant were/are the faceplates to damage should the astronaut manage to faceplant? I think that would be the top concern on my mind with regard to falling over.

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

The Apollo suits were too top heavy, so that was why EVAs were so difficult. New suits are a lot better.

Well humans are top heavy too...

The problem was that they didn't have enough mobility in their arms/legs. So when they did start falling over, they had a very hard time stopping the fall. In fact, there's footage of them falling over.

[tater]

2 hours ago, fredinno said:

The Apollo suits were too top heavy, so that was why EVAs were so difficult. New suits are a lot better.

The principal issue with space suits is that they are inflated, making bending limbs difficult, and in fact hard work in both flexion and extension. 

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, tater said:

The principal issue with space suits is that they are inflated, making bending limbs difficult, and in fact hard work in both flexion and extension. 

Yes, and the new proposed Spacesuits for Lunar/Mars Exploration don't have these problems.

[wumpus]

On 1/30/2016 at 4:15 PM, HebaruSan said:

How resistant were/are the faceplates to damage should the astronaut manage to faceplant? I think that would be the top concern on my mind with regard to falling over.

At lunar gravity probably pretty good.  Less so on Mars (although that seems to be less an issue with new suits).  I don't remember anyone splatting on Earth, but they seemed to take short shuffling steps (especially when going from the tower into the Apollo.  YIKES!).

[Halo_003]

I was thinking about this recently actually, I think what a Mars colony/base would offer is freedom. A lot of people are displeased with the political climate on Earth, the problems on Earth, etc. I could see early Mars colonists being like the early settlers of America, leaving to escape what they see as political/religious/whatever tyranny.

[sevenperforce]

23 minutes ago, Halo_003 said:

I was thinking about this recently actually, I think what a Mars colony/base would offer is freedom. A lot of people are displeased with the political climate on Earth, the problems on Earth, etc. I could see early Mars colonists being like the early settlers of America, leaving to escape what they see as political/religious/whatever tyranny.

Unfortunately that would tend to stock the Mars colony with a lot of nuts...

[tater]

25 minutes ago, Halo_003 said:

I was thinking about this recently actually, I think what a Mars colony/base would offer is freedom. A lot of people are displeased with the political climate on Earth, the problems on Earth, etc. I could see early Mars colonists being like the early settlers of America, leaving to escape what they see as political/religious/whatever tyranny.

This makes pretty much no sense, as Martians will be entirely dependent upon government for literally every single aspect of their survival.

[sevenperforce]

With an unjustifiable optimism in which a location can be found that allows Martian colonists nearly-unlimited access to water and a large range of minerals, what is the minimum they'd need to become self-sustaining for at least a couple of years?

The sort of nuts who would colonize Mars in the name of freedom from oppressive Obamacare tyranny would probably justify government-sponsored resupply somehow...they're not known for being conscientious or consistent.

[Halo_003]

2 hours ago, tater said:

This makes pretty much no sense, as Martians will be entirely dependent upon government for literally every single aspect of their survival.

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.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, tater said:

This makes pretty much no sense, as Martians will be entirely dependent upon government for literally every single aspect of their survival.

A ocean colony would make more sense for this, as those a lot easier to make, and can be done by private corporations, offering much greater independence.

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

With an unjustifiable optimism in which a location can be found that allows Martian colonists nearly-unlimited access to water and a large range of minerals, what is the minimum they'd need to become self-sustaining for at least a couple of years?

The sort of nuts who would colonize Mars in the name of freedom from oppressive Obamacare tyranny would probably justify government-sponsored resupply somehow...they're not known for being conscientious or consistent.

Many years, and a lot of equipment.

[sevenperforce]

13 minutes ago, fredinno said:

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

With an unjustifiable optimism in which a location can be found that allows Martian colonists nearly-unlimited access to water and a large range of minerals, what is the minimum they'd need to become self-sustaining for at least a couple of years?

Many years, and a lot of equipment.

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?