> A successful mars colony would need to have a plan to reach self-sufficiency through Martian plus asteroid resources.
Not at all. While there will be an economic and logistical incentive to reduce the dependence on imports from earth, it is not reasonable to expect the colony to fully duplicate the manufacturing capabilities of earth. There will be drugs, electronic components and human experts that will imported from earth for a very long time.
I believe a Martian colony would be successful when they achieve economic viability (import value lower than export value). This would happen well before they would reach actual self sufficiency.
it is not reasonable to expect the colony to fully duplicate the manufacturing capabilities of earth. There will be drugs, electronic components and human experts that will imported from earth for a very long time.
Aren't there former colonies of western empires that now produce their own drugs, electronic components, and human experts? Granted, it's a bit more difficult because it requires first building the life support infrastructure or the world, whereas colonies on Earth have their life support for free. However, Mars has geologic processes that produce minerals, and people have already mapped out the chemical processes that could be conducted with in-situ resources, all the way up to production of feedstocks for making plastics like ethylene. (Also done for Venus.)
I believe a Martian colony would be successful when they achieve economic viability (import value lower than export value). This would happen well before they would reach actual self sufficiency.
There are political reasons for self sufficiency, which can warp the market a bit.
I don't think any country on earth is currently wholey self sufficient due to the nature of globalism. Nobody can cut off all exports without losing access to some necessary components or materials. A colony on Mars would have higher and more advanced needs to support and protect human life.
A colony on Mars would have higher and more advanced needs to support and protect human life.
This is mostly false and slightly true. The level of technology needed to imperfectly supply the bulk of life support needs isn't that high. Pressurized, radiation shielded homes could be built by making bricks, building structures out of masonry arches, sealing them with an airtight liner, then burying them. The chemistry for extracting breathing gasses and plastics feed-stocks out of the atmosphere dates from the industrial revolution and 20th century. Mars is much more likely to be dependent on Earth for products like microprocessors for far longer than environmental needs.
Completely balancing and stabilizing artificial ecosystems to be 100% self sustaining and recycling might take many decades. However, the elements and materials needed are all available as inputs from sources outside of the Earth.
What products would a martian colony produce that are worth transport costs? Even taking into account you only need to pay for the return trip, because the earth-mars leg is payed for by imports anyway.
Data has much more favorable transport costs, but there is only so much valuable data on Mars. Especially since astronomy isn't really a free market.
There might be resources on Mars that are rare enough on Earth to be worth it. I'd be interested in hearing more on those.
It seems to me like the main value of a Mars colony (human exploration, achievement, and insurance against planetary wipe-out) are abstract, and can't be exported in any real sense.
I don't think any imports from Mars could be profitable. Except scientific data, of course. The colony will depend on Earth tech for a long time.
The only case for a self-sustained colony I see is some local political extremism. To prefer to live on Mars by one's own means would take some very strong Earth-incompatible views.
The chance of a colony on Mars NOT seeking independence when it reaches a modicum of self-sufficiency is nil. Look at the US; separated by 6-12 weeks of sailing. It's human nature to seek to govern your own affairs, and with travel time to Mars being around 300 days, as soon as they can, they'll become independent.
I don't know. Look at Canada; separated by the same distance yet it remained a colony until 1931.
While rebellious space colonies has been a dependable sci-fi trope since the 50's, I am skeptical things would really work out that way given how dependent Mars would be on Earth for everything other than the very basics of self-sufficiency. I am talking about things like art (music, books, films) and the kinds of developments in science, medicine and engineering that can only be generated by having a support base of 8 billion people.
I think it also depends on what flag the Mars colony flies. If a country (e.g. the U.S) claims the colony for themselves, I think it makes sense that there will be more and more pressure to disassociate especially as people from different countries on Earth mix together. I can see a united colony, however, something like the ISS, working better as there is the cultural idea of being "for humanity" as opposed to "for this country that not everybody identifies with".
The one import from Mars that might be profitable does not come from Mars: resources mined from asteroids. Mars is closer to it (and in a shallower gravity well than Earth), so if for whatever reason we want people closer to asteroid mining operations, that might be a viable niche for Mars.
That's very speculative, though. Asteroid mining is probably going to be entirely robots, and both supply of those robots and the demand for the resources are almost entire based on Earth, so it's very questionable a Mars colony will add any value there. But it's the one area where I can see the possibility.
A refueling station on Deimos, however, sounds like a much more interesting prospect.
Not at all. While there will be an economic and logistical incentive to reduce the dependence on imports from earth, it is not reasonable to expect the colony to fully duplicate the manufacturing capabilities of earth. There will be drugs, electronic components and human experts that will imported from earth for a very long time.
I believe a Martian colony would be successful when they achieve economic viability (import value lower than export value). This would happen well before they would reach actual self sufficiency.