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Comment by tdaltonc | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it took 100's of years for people to figure out that a continent teaming cod, timber, and beavers might be a good place to set up trade. Grated, early on, they thought it was a continent full of gold and spices.

I don't know what the analogous economic engine could possible be on Mars. If Mars is going to grow, we need to be able to imagine someone saying "I'm moving my family to Mars in search of a better life. I just don't see that happening. Series or L2 station? Sure, someone has to refine the iridium before we send it down the gravity well. But why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?

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> I don't think it took 100's of years for people to figure out that a continent teaming cod, timber, and beavers might be a good place to set up trade. Grated, early on, they thought it was a continent full of gold and spices.

But it did! There were very basic, underfunded French colonies in North America for example for at least a hundred years before they really sent a lot more people and realized the wealth that could be had. At the same time the colonizing countries also had great internal issues, but had they known how much profit could've been made from investment, undoubtedly they would've been colonizing in full force much earlier.

> why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?

? New environment, new markets, new needs = lots of new and potentially huge opportunities. I'm asking myself the complete opposite question.

We know what's on Mars and there isn't much there that isn't better sourced here, unless you want to use what you source on Mars itself. And there won't be a significant consumption base there for literally centuries, if ever.

I'm in favor of human off-world activities, but I think it's a joke to make some kind of free-market argument. We should do it because we should do it, not because of invisible hands.

Consider the free-market thing a small plus in the grand scheme of things. I don't think anyone dreams of going to Mars solely for the business opportunity... Not yet.

There's nothing there. Did you setup shop on Antarctica? No? That's because there's nothing there. Same with Mars.

Go for the knowledge, but as far as ordinary human things are concerned there is no reason to go.

Until you can make an economic case for settling the poles you won't be able to make one for Mars - and the poles are LOT easier to live on BTW.

We have a base on the poles for the same reason we'll have one on Mars.

You can't set up shop in Antarctica because its forbidden by the antarctic treaty, which is backed by 32 Nations. If you think people wouldn't be conducting business there if given the option, you've somehow managed to overlook every other corner of the world where its not prohibited. Mining businesses. Tourism/adventure companies. Setting up stores, bars, and other entertainment venues to supply tourists and miners with things to do and stuff to buy. These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head that would be happening in Antarctica if it weren't patently illegal.

> Tourism/adventure companies

That is legal in Antartica. It's just really expensive and there aren't a lot of people who want to do it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/white-dese...

I don't think you need to make martian mining illegal to discourage the industry. At $500 a lb, no raw materials will be coming to earth from Mars and time soon.

> there aren't a lot of people who want to do it.

Where do you get that? Tourism is back near pre-bust 40,000, mostly American, a year. The expensive hotel is fully booked 2 of its 4 weeks. With near 40 treaty countries almost no binding changes are agreed, and regular plans to limit numbers remain just that.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30709924 https://www.yahoo.com/news/antarctica-concerns-grow-tourism-... (2013)

Two countries close to Antarctica, Chile and Argentina, are not signatories to the Antarctic Treaty and have territorial claims. Both of these countries already have a decent amount of natural resource extraction (especially Chile), so one would reason that if it is worth mining, they would be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_Antarctic_Territory

One could also look at the interior of Greenland, which is Danish territory. No serious development of any kind occurs there - it's all along the coasts.

Er, Chile and Argentina are original Treaty (1959) signatories, and dispute at least some of Britain and France's claims, and vice versa.

The treaty sets aside territorial claims whilst it's in force. All the claims for all countries are still there, just neutered.

You are right. Not sure how I missed that

I think setting up a self sustaining colony in Sahara would be more impressive due to a lack of water. (Which is still more water than is present in Martian soil).

If you are correct that there is nothing on mars, then perhaps the cheaper to ascend gravity well of the moon will be worth something.

What can be 3d printed on the moon (from plans made on earth) and lifted to a useful place above LEO?

Lower gravity sports leagues?

Even short term there would be money to be made and with the option of return journeys it would be attractive to people. Young, single and childless will be their target at first. This means you generally have a healthier population so less stress on the medical resources and they have more disposable money to spend on expensive imported earth goods.

> Young, single and childless will be their target at first.

Given the cost per ticket (how many young people have a few spare $100k lying around?), the considerable risk of unscheduled rapid decommissioning and the guaranteed high level of radiation exposure (worse for longer expected remaining lifetime) I would look for older (50+) people without dependents.

You'll work it off in the Spice mines.

Space tourism industry.

Remember the Venn diagram that Elon showed? Spacex is going to lower the cost of going to Mars so that billionaires can afford to go. Then lower the cost so millionaires can afford to go. Continue lower the cost until more people can afford to go. Eventually, more people can afford to go to Mars and return safely to Earth.

Why would you go to Mars? Because its there. And because I can.

Space research industry.

With all these people going to Mars there will be demand for new and advanced technology.

And there's probably more industry that will sprout that we cannot foresee now. Its a whole new frontier out there.

> why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?

Brand new market, which means no competitors and high demand for everything. Kind of like how everything was way overpriced in Clondyke during the gold rush.

What would a "new market" on Mars really look like? Living on Mars would be extremely harsh for the foreseeable future, inhabitants would be struggling just to meet their basic needs for many, many, generations and the life of a successful Martian entrepreneur (in terms of material wealth) would be comparable to an American pauper.

In a way, it would be a very luxurious lifestyle; all basic necessities would be taken care of by automated systems. It's not like you'll be slaving naked in the fields to cultivate the crops. Probably it would be more like sitting at a workstation all day, monitoring life support systems and sending orders to the robots.

The hard part would be missing the fresh air, green fields and blue skies of home. But, if there's an eco-catastrophe on Earth, there may be nothing to go home to.

That doesn't answer the question of why there would be thousand of people on Mars willing to pay exorbitant prices for stuff. What is the "gold" in this analogy?

The gold is scientific discovery & progress. If you don't think there is a crush of scientists, geologists & the like chomping at the bit to do in-person science on another planet you're a bit nuts. Add to that the glut of people who want to go for sheer adventure. All of those people are going to need "stuff" when they get there.

Its a planet with similar composition to ours. I am pretty sure that there is plenty of gold.

I guess if you could produce materials on mars it would be much easier to build and deploy gigant structures into space (lower gravity and escape velocity)

Mining is something that is always mentioned in scifi, but I am not sure how profitable it would be, I guess if propellant can be mined on mars it would be pretty doable.

Performing activities that would be environmental risks on earth would be relatively low risk on mars, due to the fact that it is already a wasteland.

Tourism would be a thing as well which would require many trades of comfort

America became a melting pot of entrepreneurial DNA. Nikola Tesla came to America to commercialize his AC power ideas. Silicon Valley came about because someone found this continent. Europe was stagnating in technological advances.

Albert Einstein used thought experiments about trains and elevators to came up with general relativity and how we view gravity. We wouldn't have accurate GPS if it wasn't for him.

It isn't possible for us to imagine what people will discover after being inspired by that journey to Mars.

But technologies used here will be eventually used to do asteroid mining, then used at ultra luxurious space colonies.

If you have enough money you could buy your own space island and stay there.

> why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?

Lack of regulation?

Only when Mars becomes self-sufficient. As long as Mars is dependent on Earth, enforcing regulations would be ridiculously easy: do as we say or starve (or run out of some other essential resource).

The inherent difficulty of the Martian environment is far more restrictive and expensive than even the most draconian regulations.

The only way this would make sense is if one's objection to regulations was purely ideological and not grounded in any sort of reality-based cost-benefit analyses. Setting up shop in a failed state is far easier than setting up shop on Mars, and that will remain true for the foreseeable future (and probably forever, or until no failed states exist).

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