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> how do you actually create a self sustaining Martian economy? I've never heard a realistic answer for this. What would a realistic answer even look like? I i

> how do you actually create a self sustaining Martian economy? I've never heard a realistic answer for this. What would a realistic answer even look like? I imagine that since nothing like jump-starting an economy ex nihilo on a cold, desert planet has been done before, any proposal at all would sound wildly unrealistic.

verve_rat 2y ago
Tourism? That's the only thing that even approaches realistic that I can think of.
- skissane 2y ago
  The problem with the Martian tourism is the huge amount of time it takes - around 3 year round trip with current conventional rockets; this proposed nuclear rocket would cut travel time to 2 months one way, but you are still looking at a 4 month minimum just in travel time. A billionaire who could afford a Martian vacation would likely struggle to take the time out of their schedule for one. This is why I think lunar tourism is much more viable: a vacation on the Moon need only take 2 weeks (a week of travel time and a week there; and nuclear propulsion could cut the travel time substantially)
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    It takes 2 months in near-ideal winds to cross the Atlantic by (non-modern ultralight) sail, yet that sort of travel was done pretty regularly for business. When steam engines decreased that time to 16 days, 200-passenger ships crossing Atlantic purely for tourism were very popular.
    - skissane 2y ago
      It once was a tradition for the English upper classes to send their young sons on a "grand tour" of the Continent, which would last for many months, sometimes even a year or two. So, yes, some billionaire paying for their kid to spend 12-18 months on a Mars trip is a possibility. Or maybe even for themselves if they retire, or as a sabbatical. However, I think the much greater time and expense is going to make Martian tourism a much smaller market than lunar tourism. I think in the medium term, the Moon is a much more feasible destination for humans than Mars is. It is much easier for an ultra-wealthy person to take a few weeks out of their schedule for a trip to the Moon, than months or years for a trip to Mars. Since it is only a bit over a light-second away, they could even quite feasibly work remotely from there – the delay is small enough that real-time audio and video calls are possible. Mars is 3–22 light minutes, which forces all communication to be asynchronous.
- rendall 2y ago
  I guess my question wasn't so much "What is a realistic solution?" but more "Would we even recognize a realistic solution if it were presented to us?" The enterprise of starting a colony on Mars is so unprecedented that any economic solution sounds nuts. I think the only realistic answer at this point is "We need more information".
lupusreal 2y ago
"The Mars colony would produce [service/good] to generate income sufficient to pay for the colony's upkeep / expansion." Let's assume the colony itself is built by some idealist willing a trillion dollars to the project or something. Now that you have a base on Mars, how do the inhabitants pay to keep it going? Self sufficiency is too far fetched at this stage so they need regular supply shipments from Earth, so they need income of Earth currency.
- skissane 2y ago
  > Now that you have a base on Mars, how do the inhabitants pay to keep it going? Self sufficiency is too far fetched at this stage so they need regular supply shipments from Earth, so they need income of Earth currency. Emotional blackmail: “If Congress doesn’t pass the Martian colony funding bill, Americans on Mars will die” National competition: “China’s Mars colony is bigger than ours” Religion: “God wants us to send money to Mars” (that may sound bizarre, but religion motivates humans to spend fortunes on all sorts of strange things, maybe at some point one or more religions will latch on to Mars)
- rendall 2y ago
  Ok, you've described the problem again, but I'm trying to understand what a realistic answer would look like. Let's say for instance that some answer were "handicrafts built from local, Martian materials" along with "YouTube channel revenue". Sounds unrealistic to me, but maybe people would be willing to pay $1M for a little puppet made on Mars, and they could ship them out by the ton. The economics on this are unusual. I don't know. I honestly think Martian colonization just will not happen until we have a global, peaceful, prosperous civilization. Then it would just be funded by the global government in a similar way and for similar reasons as the antarctic stations.

verve_rat 2y ago

Tourism? That's the only thing that even approaches realistic that I can think of.

skissane 2y ago
The problem with the Martian tourism is the huge amount of time it takes - around 3 year round trip with current conventional rockets; this proposed nuclear rocket would cut travel time to 2 months one way, but you are still looking at a 4 month minimum just in travel time. A billionaire who could afford a Martian vacation would likely struggle to take the time out of their schedule for one. This is why I think lunar tourism is much more viable: a vacation on the Moon need only take 2 weeks (a week of travel time and a week there; and nuclear propulsion could cut the travel time substantially)
- yencabulator 2y ago
  It takes 2 months in near-ideal winds to cross the Atlantic by (non-modern ultralight) sail, yet that sort of travel was done pretty regularly for business. When steam engines decreased that time to 16 days, 200-passenger ships crossing Atlantic purely for tourism were very popular.
  - skissane 2y ago
    It once was a tradition for the English upper classes to send their young sons on a "grand tour" of the Continent, which would last for many months, sometimes even a year or two. So, yes, some billionaire paying for their kid to spend 12-18 months on a Mars trip is a possibility. Or maybe even for themselves if they retire, or as a sabbatical. However, I think the much greater time and expense is going to make Martian tourism a much smaller market than lunar tourism. I think in the medium term, the Moon is a much more feasible destination for humans than Mars is. It is much easier for an ultra-wealthy person to take a few weeks out of their schedule for a trip to the Moon, than months or years for a trip to Mars. Since it is only a bit over a light-second away, they could even quite feasibly work remotely from there – the delay is small enough that real-time audio and video calls are possible. Mars is 3–22 light minutes, which forces all communication to be asynchronous.
rendall 2y ago
I guess my question wasn't so much "What is a realistic solution?" but more "Would we even recognize a realistic solution if it were presented to us?" The enterprise of starting a colony on Mars is so unprecedented that any economic solution sounds nuts. I think the only realistic answer at this point is "We need more information".

lupusreal 2y ago

"The Mars colony would produce [service/good] to generate income sufficient to pay for the colony's upkeep / expansion." Let's assume the colony itself is built by some idealist willing a trillion dollars to the project or something. Now that you have a base on Mars, how do the inhabitants pay to keep it going? Self sufficiency is too far fetched at this stage so they need regular supply shipments from Earth, so they need income of Earth currency.

skissane 2y ago
> Now that you have a base on Mars, how do the inhabitants pay to keep it going? Self sufficiency is too far fetched at this stage so they need regular supply shipments from Earth, so they need income of Earth currency. Emotional blackmail: “If Congress doesn’t pass the Martian colony funding bill, Americans on Mars will die” National competition: “China’s Mars colony is bigger than ours” Religion: “God wants us to send money to Mars” (that may sound bizarre, but religion motivates humans to spend fortunes on all sorts of strange things, maybe at some point one or more religions will latch on to Mars)
rendall 2y ago
Ok, you've described the problem again, but I'm trying to understand what a realistic answer would look like. Let's say for instance that some answer were "handicrafts built from local, Martian materials" along with "YouTube channel revenue". Sounds unrealistic to me, but maybe people would be willing to pay $1M for a little puppet made on Mars, and they could ship them out by the ton. The economics on this are unusual. I don't know. I honestly think Martian colonization just will not happen until we have a global, peaceful, prosperous civilization. Then it would just be funded by the global government in a similar way and for similar reasons as the antarctic stations.