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I would imagine that any colony would be dependent on Earth (for survival) for quite a while. I think that it would take a certain level of self-sufficiency in

I would imagine that any colony would be dependent on Earth (for survival) for quite a while. I think that it would take a certain level of self-sufficiency in order to reach a point of not being controllable by earth. Being far away is one thing, but when I look at how powers on Earth exert influence and control over others, it seems you also need to be self-sufficient (protection from blockades, trade embargoes, or other modern "seiges"), and also sufficiently defended/defensible to avoid military threats. Sure, your Martian buildings may be underground, but would they be safe from heavy objects flung at them at high velocity? Seems like it would be easy enough for Earth to "put down" any Martian activities that rubbed people the wrong way for the foreseeable future.

aftbit 6y ago
Maybe that will be MAD for the 23rd century - you blow up our habitats, we'll drop rocks on your cities.
- Balgair 6y ago
  It may be a bit more like the Triangle Trades of old [0]. Raw/rare materials and elements are mined in the Belt and are then sent to Earth for use in manufacture. You pick up the high quality goods and tools from Earth and ship them to Mars/Moon. Since there is water on Mars/Moon, you grow food, 'wet' supplies, and unfinished goods in the weaker gravity well for shipment to the Belt. These arrive in the Belt and you repeat the process, profiting at every spaceport. As the metropole has overwhelming manpower/firepower due to it's high class manufacturing base and population, the threat of violence is just plain bad for business all around and is discouraged. Now I'm gong to speculate very hard: Eventually, the lesser manufacturing base (Moon/Mars) will gain in economic and political power as their frontier life becomes more civilized and independent of the metropole. And they may try to declare independence fully. However, in the case of Moon/Mars, you're looking at a fully independent multi-generational extraterrestrial biospheres at that point and probably millions of people, if not 10s of millions, to run the whole thing. Lots of people that have never been to Earth and never plan on going. I really don't see that much trade/mining would be needed to go to Earth to build up and support permanently independent biospheres of a few generations of native Martians/Moonies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    There are no known commodity items that can be profitably mined in space.[0] There will almost certainly be stuff like gold and rare metals shipped from a Mars colony to Earth, but only because returning the ships from Mars makes vital resupply easier. From a total system perspective it'd be better to keep the ship on Mars and scavenge it, but Mars will be on such an economic imbalance that they will want to make it easy as possible for Earth to resupply them. And if you're going to return the ships anyways, you might as well put something in them. The diagram at the top of [1] is a good illustration of import vs make in situ vs export. [0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-known-commodity-resources-in-space-that-could-be-sold-on-earth/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-k... [1] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of-space-industrialization/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...

aftbit 6y ago

Maybe that will be MAD for the 23rd century - you blow up our habitats, we'll drop rocks on your cities.

Balgair 6y ago
It may be a bit more like the Triangle Trades of old [0]. Raw/rare materials and elements are mined in the Belt and are then sent to Earth for use in manufacture. You pick up the high quality goods and tools from Earth and ship them to Mars/Moon. Since there is water on Mars/Moon, you grow food, 'wet' supplies, and unfinished goods in the weaker gravity well for shipment to the Belt. These arrive in the Belt and you repeat the process, profiting at every spaceport. As the metropole has overwhelming manpower/firepower due to it's high class manufacturing base and population, the threat of violence is just plain bad for business all around and is discouraged. Now I'm gong to speculate very hard: Eventually, the lesser manufacturing base (Moon/Mars) will gain in economic and political power as their frontier life becomes more civilized and independent of the metropole. And they may try to declare independence fully. However, in the case of Moon/Mars, you're looking at a fully independent multi-generational extraterrestrial biospheres at that point and probably millions of people, if not 10s of millions, to run the whole thing. Lots of people that have never been to Earth and never plan on going. I really don't see that much trade/mining would be needed to go to Earth to build up and support permanently independent biospheres of a few generations of native Martians/Moonies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  There are no known commodity items that can be profitably mined in space.[0] There will almost certainly be stuff like gold and rare metals shipped from a Mars colony to Earth, but only because returning the ships from Mars makes vital resupply easier. From a total system perspective it'd be better to keep the ship on Mars and scavenge it, but Mars will be on such an economic imbalance that they will want to make it easy as possible for Earth to resupply them. And if you're going to return the ships anyways, you might as well put something in them. The diagram at the top of [1] is a good illustration of import vs make in situ vs export. [0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-known-commodity-resources-in-space-that-could-be-sold-on-earth/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-k... [1] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of-space-industrialization/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...