The Mars Colony

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by razark

While asteroids are a good source of ores, we don't know exactly what might be available on Mars. In addition, any resources on Mars have the benefit of not having been ravaged for thousands of years.

Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.

[razark]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.

I was referring to thousands of years of human civilization ravaging the useful, easily obtainable bits of metals and such. Mars, having been a wet planet, is speculated as likely to form many of the same ores as Earth. And they haven't been picked up and dug out and stuck in someone's pockets yet.

Deuterium, I believe, is also supposed to more plentiful on Mars. Useful for fusion, if we ever get that working.

[Zachstar]

You HAVE to develop those technologies for the colony to have even the SLIGHTEST hope of being self sustaining.

People really have no idea what an advantage having breathable air and easily accessed water is. Have no idea how much it costs to send even simple probes to mars much less many ton modules. Have no idea how much energy it takes to mine even high quality ore. etc. etc..

Why do I mention Algae for instance? NASA loves to show their hydroponics and all that Jazz but if you look at how much real life farmland it takes to feed a single person every year you quickly realize how silly it is. Sure some needs to be grown such as herbs medical use plants and some foodstuffs but history has shown us that disaster can come out of nowhere. There is no escaping a potato blight on mars. A major crop disease could mean collapse of economy due to how workforce is affected. Algae technology tho grows a GREAT amount of food in a single day without genetically altering it. What is needed is to be able to transform that algae into something reasonable to eat. That will take a bunch of time and money. But the risk of failure due to the food failure is too great otherwise.

Do it today? Sure put the entire world on the project somehow stop discrimination and corruption and politics overnight and at the same time convince the populace that all entitlement and social services and 75 percent of the military is going to mars instead. I'm being serious.

[August]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by razark

I was referring to thousands of years of human civilization ravaging the useful, easily obtainable bits of metals and such. Mars, having been a wet planet, is speculated as likely to form many of the same ores as Earth. And they haven't been picked up and dug out and stuck in someone's pockets yet.

Deuterium, I believe, is also supposed to more plentiful on Mars. Useful for fusion, if we ever get that working.

Deuterium and He3 are even more plentiful on Saturn and Uranus (insert joke here). Mars is just a way station to that rich region.

Originally Posted by August

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value?

Makes expensive high tech things get cheap. There is a huge amount of gold and titanium in the space shuttle. What would happen if it became as cheap and plentiful as silicon? Mass production of spacecraft and space stations.

Value can mean many things, not just that something has monetary value.

[razark]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Deuterium and He3 are even more plentiful on Saturn and Uranus (insert joke here). Mars is just a way station to that rich region.

Except that Mars is the one we can reach now, with what we have today.

Besides, Saturn and Uranus are just a fuel stop on the way out of the solar system.

One lucky man and a long line of women could populate Mars!

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by razark

Except that Mars is the one we can reach now, with what we have today.

Besides, Saturn and Uranus are just a fuel stop on the way out of the solar system.

As far as He3 the moon is obviously the first stop. Tho He3 fusion will not be economically viable for a great deal of time anyway. Why would you develop all that infrastructure to get a small bit of advantage in the reaction when you can use PB11 and get boron from mines or the ocean?

[razark]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

As far as He3 the moon is obviously the first stop. Tho He3 fusion will not be economically viable for a great deal of time anyway. Why would you develop all that infrastructure to get a small bit of advantage in the reaction when you can use PB11 and get boron from mines or the ocean?

Why wait for any of that, when we can use what we've got now?

Columbus would have made his voyages a lot faster if he had waited for someone to invent the steamship.

[Zachstar]

The interests that gave him the mission and the fleet did not have to really answer to the populace and was unlikely the majority would have even heard about it much less gotten a chance to comment to a newspaper or poll about it.

Today that is politically impossible. Even the few apollo missions got funded to "beat the russians" I highly doubt there are Russian or Chinese plans to colonize mars anytime soon and you wont be able to tell a mom her child gets to go without school budget and take classes packed more together in order to colonize mars much less remove social security. Welfare. Budget for law enforcement and fire and all medical and more.

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by August

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value?

As TLAM said a new market develops. Iron is extremely valuable even tho it is not rare. It has allowed civilization to go into the next stage.

When a previously hard to extract metal becomes easier through development and technology a new age usually develops.