The Mars Colony

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by August

The side discussion in the suckup administration thread got me to thinking about what it would take to create a self sustaining colony on Mars that was large enough to ensure the survival of the human race if a "planet killer" asteroid were to hit earth. What would be the minimum population required? What would it take to make a colony self sustaining? What would be the economic incentive for creating a colony?

Self Sustaining? Not in the near future, best defense against a PKA would be a well developed space infrastructure- the ability to get stuff in to LEO quickly.

Economic Incentive would be farming (in domes and underground) to support mining in the Asteroid Belt. (see below)

Minimum population requirements are moot, genetic material could be transported and stored to breed future colonists. Eventually sending probes with such genetic material and the gear to artificially gestate new humans to other stars would be a good idea.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I can only answer the last question with any degree of certainty, and the answer is "Much more than any rock in this solar system has, Mars included". There would have to be a remarkable advance in spacecraft propulsion to make it profitable to mine gold on Mars, let alone the worthless rock that it is primarily composed of. I think the day will come when it is economically feasible to exploit extraterrestrial resources, but we're a long way from it at present.

Doubt we would go to Mars for mining, Asteroids are better sources of rare ores, talking up to tens of trillions of $ per asteroid here. Hollowed out Asteroids also make good colonies or even spaceships.

Also asteroids are not just found in the space between Mars and Jupiter but near our orbit. Sometimes they are even closer to Earth than the Moon.