Hacker News Reader

Comment by CryptoPunk | Hacker News Reader

The cost would be enormous. Much of what's consumed on the Mars settlement would have to be imported from another planet (Earth). During the early expansion phase the need for imported construction material would be exorbitant. We're talking a constant flow of goods being launched from Earth to sustain construction.

And expansion and sustainance would be very capital intensive, due to a lack of a breathable atmosphere requiring heavy duty habitats and lack of vegetation/fauna that can be harvested.

View on HN

10% of the us military budget could cover it (60 billion). There's the potential to use the volatiles there to make local enclosed atmosphere, we'd eventually have the ability to grow some food locally, but yes, it's probably going to cost 100 billion. There are plans to build in things like lava tubes to protect against gamma rays.

One trick is to dig in. A large cave would provide both structural support and radiation shielding for an initial settlement. But it's true that a Mars colony would initially require a huge flow of goods from Earth - even if they get a proper farm going, they'd still need replacement parts for all high-tech equipment that's being used. That is what I think will be the primary import - high-tech components.

As for costs, dropping them is precisely the goal SpaceX is based around. The BFR isn't just meant to enable transport of people - it also aims at being able to move a lot of mass to Mars for cheap.

I'd like to see a breakdown of the kind of equipment and labor resources needed to dig out underground habitats.

To get to the point where a Mars colony is self-sufficient in producing things like heavy-duty construction equipment and solar panels could require obscene capital expenditures.

Not saying that it wouldn't be worth doing - imagine just all the technological spin-offs that would come from overcoming the challenges of creating a self-sustaining settlement on another planet, not to mention making an entire planet's worth of resources accessible to us - just that the scope of what it would require to pull off should be appreciated.

>>The BFR isn't just meant to enable transport of people - it also aims at being able to move a lot of mass to Mars for cheap.

I agree. The BFR will be a game-changer.

I suppose I shouldn't have written "dig in", where I meant less actual digging, and more of adapting existing caves and lava tunnels.

Also, solar panels I place in the list of high-tech components that would need to be imported. Curiously though, I recall reading that wind power could be used on Mars. A wind plant could be mostly fabricated from local material, with only electrical components sourced from Earth, and apparently wind power is competitive with solar on Mars - the atmosphere is less dense, but solar panels also provide less due to R^2 drop in power per unit of area with distance.

I agree it won't be easy - or cheap - but both the prospect of a colony and all the potential spin-offs make it worth it.

Interesting, thanks for the reply.

I would assume that a colony on Mars will have to rely on materials found on Mars for construction in order to be viable. Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.

> Therefore after the few initial buildings built with materials shipped from Earth, there will need to be a great push to find new materials on Mars and perhaps new construction techniques to grow the colony.

I suspect that the development will occur before the initial buildings. The political/social/economic risk environment just doesn't include the option of sending mavericks up to see if they can figure out something that works.

The rovers we have now and the rovers we are building/will build are pretty good at identifying what we have to work with, and it's comparatively easy to test a material process or construction technique on Earth before trying it while wearing a spacesuit.

At the very least, I expect we'll have a viable base of initial buildings and a fuel/oxidizer depot set up before the first astronauts arrive.

I would like to see more prototyping of techniques that could be used on Mars to create materials. It seems there is a lot of handwaving but not much real-world engineering. Before we haven't run a long-term trial for surviving in some desert on earth it would be irresponsible to fly to Mars.

There is some prototyping, but not nearly enough IMO, and it doesn't hit the news that much.

I agree about desert trials (or better yet, somewhere dry and cold near the pole). I'm not sure why this isn't done - whether it's just a money issue, or there's less benefit to be had from such test than we think?

" whether it's just a money issue, or there's less benefit to be had from such test than we think? "

I think NASA will do them but their dates for such a mission are decades away. Others who want to do this earlier are probably just not serious. With current tech this would be a suicide mission. Any little problem will kill the settlers.

On Earth, you can always airlift people at the earliest sign of trouble, so I don't think the risk is that big. And even semi-serious attempts could give wealth of data useful for actual mission.

Should have phrased this more precise: I meant on Mars every little problem will kill you. On Earth you can rescue people, no problem.

Right. Just that the part you quoted in the original reply was about Earth. Mars mission, that's almost a given. I wonder why we aren't already having larger-scale trials on deserts or near the poles.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com