We've heard several times about how Elon Musk plans to take us to Mars using the Starship spacecraft. Although I do believe that given the time and money this is possible, I don't understand how we shall colonize/live on the planet. Will we live using oxygen obtained from earth or do we have plans for a natural ecosystem? How efficient would such a mission be?
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5$\begingroup$ Supplementry to the current answer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One $\endgroup$– GremlinWrangerCommented Sep 3 at 9:08
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2$\begingroup$ Depends on whose plans you’re looking at $\endgroup$– StarshipCommented Sep 3 at 10:12
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1$\begingroup$ A search of multiple dictionaries yielded varying definitions of "colony" and "colonization". For instance, many definitions centered on "subjugation of indigenous people", which is easily accomplished on Mars. Since the word is central to the meaning of the question, clarification would be helpful. $\endgroup$– WoodyCommented Sep 3 at 14:04
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7$\begingroup$ "A city on Mars" (2003) by the Wienersmiths is a good book at the topic, that approaches this from the ground up from many different angles. $\endgroup$– ScienceSnakeCommented Sep 3 at 14:43
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1$\begingroup$ @Woody I guess that depends on whether you use an all or exists quantor. ("Subjugate all indigenous people" = easy, there are none. "Subjugate some indigenous people" = impossible, there are none.) $\endgroup$– Paŭlo EbermannCommented Sep 3 at 17:01
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2 Answers
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There are currently no serious plans for colonizing Mars
Any credible attempt at colonizing Mars is still a very, very, long way off. Right now, it's essentially just science fiction. Therefore, the question asked in "I don't understand how we shall colonize/live on the planet" is unanswerable, because right now, we won't, because there is no plan to actually do it.
If you are referring to Musk's "plan" specifically, then this question is also unanswerable, because beyond developing Starship and potentially some ISRU machinery for producing fuel at Mars, Musk's plan for colonization does not go beyond pretty CGI animations of glass domes on the Martian surface.
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5$\begingroup$ This might be nitpicking, but "it's essentially just science fiction" is exaggeration, especially given the follow-on questions asked by OP. Actual engineering effort is being expended on Mars ISRU development, though I admit that the work has stayed very basic without sufficient development or budget and the best-known plans like Mars One are somewhere between fanciful and outright cons. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 3 at 9:11
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21$\begingroup$ @ErinAnne I think I just set the bar to what I consider "colonization" to be rather high. For example, despite thousands of people currently living and working in Antarctica, I would not really consider the continent "colonized" in any way. Same with Mars, there will be quite a bit of manned exploration that needs to happen before a colonization effort can be attempted. Yes, some groups are working on technologies which, one day, could be used by Mars colonists but we haven't even sent a manned mission there, so anything we have now is, at best, a distant precursor to what will be used one day $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 3 at 12:46
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17$\begingroup$ @Dragongeek ... I like the comparison with the Antarctic. Despite being much more accessible and benign than mars, we do not have the technology to make the Antarctic independent of scheduled outside support. Like the ISS. $\endgroup$– WoodyCommented Sep 3 at 15:15
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6$\begingroup$ @PM2Ring: That is because the average person has a heavily romanticized idea of what Mars would be like. You'd be living in a tiny box with no (or at best extremely limited) internet, no entertainment devices that weigh more than a pound or so, the outside world is miles and miles of brown, and you (probably) aren't allowed to do an EVA anyway unless you have a good reason. I'm sure there are people who would be willing to put up with all of that because it's Mars, but I tend to imagine that the novelty would wear off real quick for the average person. $\endgroup$– KevinCommented Sep 3 at 20:31
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4$\begingroup$ @Kevin no entertainment devices that weigh more than a pound or so, - 20 years ago that would have been a problem. Now with modern tablets that's trivial. And shared large storage could provide decades worth of books, movies, etc. But food will be a biggie - until you have a huge nearly-self-sustaining "colony", all but the basics will be shipped from Earth - which means either very basic very boring limited menu or incredibly expensive - coffee, chocolate, beef? (actually beef might have the best chance with lab-grown meat) will all be Earth-sourced for a long time. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 3 at 21:24
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To add onto Dragongeek's excellent answer, IF we were going to send a manned mission there with intentions of setting up a serious, self sufficient colony, we would almost certainly need a pretty substantial fission reactor.
A number of factors will limit the size that such a reactor could be and it will be operationally limited by the lack of free, flowing water on Mars for cooling and generation.
The power output of your primary reactor would be the main limiting factor to things like:
- How much oxygen can you pull off of CO2 in the atmosphere (or other sources like oxides in the rocks)
- How much water can you produce, purify, and recycle?
- How large of a volume can you keep heated to human habitable (and agriculturally viable) temperatures?
- How much infrastructure development can you power? (Digging, crushing, compacting, melting, electrolysing, etc)
- How many rovers / bots can you power?
- How much redundancy can you power in all of those systems?
Mars is insanely hostile. Keeping people alive requires immense amounts of resources that we mostly get for "free" here on Earth.
Most development will need to be done by rovers on the surface while humans are safely buried in habitats quite similar to the ISS.
Self sufficiency and population growth will very much depend on "Can we fabricate more power generation and storage before we exhaust our current supply and spare parts?".
"Can we keep a self sustaining biosphere alive?" is the next limiting factor. Experiments in isolated environments to date have NOT been promising. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#Challenges)
Any serious proposal has an initial run of missions to deliver supplies and begin robotically constructing a habitat well before any humans ever get there.
It will need to continue to receive resupply missions for a LONG time after the first humans land as well.
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1$\begingroup$ Large amount of oxygen are not needed (except for use in rocket fuel) it's really hard to grow food without also producing oxygen. $\endgroup$– JasenCommented Sep 4 at 5:22
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2$\begingroup$ Even given the lower amount of sunlight reaching Mars's surface, solar power generation should be possible at scale, would provide more redundancy and be possibly more sustainable, depending on the life time of the panels. Is the environment with sandstorms etc. too harsh? Is the mass needed for comparable capacity higher than for a fission reactor? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 4 at 7:37
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$\begingroup$ Solar will be heavily utilized in any actual martian colony, yes. But it also is intermittent and you'd need batteries to balance load. Dust is not really an issue anywhere that can do maintenance, we saw several rovers go for years without the ability to wipe their panels off. If we assume 50% efficient solar panels, at a peak of ~600 watt / m^2 that mars receives, that's a max of 300w. Factoring in night time, let's call it 100w average. There are modular nuclear fission plants in development that can do 1MW. We'd need 10k m^2, or 0.01 km^2. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 4 at 16:03
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$\begingroup$ The ISS generates ~100KW, but has the luxury that space doesn't actually cool anything down quickly. Mars will. Modern naval nuclear reactors can do at upwards of 50 MW and last for 30 years with no refueling. The higher power and reliability is what will make the immense costs and weight usage worth it. The heat produced by a fission reactor can be used to directly heat living quarters, electronic systems (during night), and for industrial applications without needing to convert it to electricity first. Fabricating more solar panels in situ is the way to go. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 4 at 16:29
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$\begingroup$ @abestrange If we are serious about powering a Mars colony with solar power, then we probably will use space-based solar power instead of ground-based solar power. There are just so many more advantages to it, that it is probably the better way to go. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 4 at 18:22