Reddit mentions of How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet

>So, what's the plan for all that infrastructure? Where's the poo going to go

Into soil. While hydroponics will likely have a large use, you have to put the material in the shit back into the system or you are going to always be relying, partially, on shipments from Earth.

>What about roads?

The only people that will need roads are people prospecting. That's for them to worry about.

>Electrical?

At first you'll be taking your power generation equipment with you. You'll be relying on PV panels, some sort of storage means (taking local materials and creating methane or hydrogen etc for a generator, just ask the Russians how long dust storms can last on Mars), RTG's, I imagine people will experiment with some sort of wind turbines early on (while the wind pressure won't be similar to earth, you could use considerably lighter materials due to the reduce stress and the reduced gravity). Later you'd likely be able to exploit geothermal sources and ultimately put proper nuclear reactors online long after a local economy was established and you'd use PV on clear days and draw from the power plant during the night and when you need more power than you have available from your own systems just like on earth. You'd pay however the normal means of trade are at that time.

>Who determines the order of the weekly urea pick up

Anyone with their own habitat is going to be using all of their waste themselves for growing their own food or in various chemical reactors for other uses.

>Water?

You're going to take your own, you'll buy more or harvest it yourself.

It'd be pretty easy to melt worthwhile amounts too, the 'cheapest' method is going to be using the sun directly, basically put the ice in a sealed, transparent, greenhouse and use reflectors to concentrate more sunlight on a given space to raise the temperature. Place ice in, seal, pressurize, open valve in funneled floor, let the sun do it's work. Use a solar tracking system to adjust enough reflectors while it melts, water collects in tank. Melting done, close drain valve and vent pressure. Since no one is in the box you don't even have to use breathable air, simply pump Martian atmosphere into the box in a high enough concentration to assist with the heating of the box.
Second option, so Mars averages 57% the solar irradiance that earth gets. Average temperature on Mars is -55C. Doing some quick math in my head you'd likely need a little less than 0.5KWh to melt 1kg of ice and to get it slightly above freezing so you'll need about 6 square meters of PV panel to thaw 2kg an hour of ice, that's about 2 liters of water an hour assuming it's pure water ice and doesn't contain any dry ice or meteorites of appreciable size.

>When is trash day?

Again, any refuse is going to be reused. If you aren't breaking it down into its basic components one way or another, you are going to trade it as scrap or use it for decoration/art supplies or even as insulation.

>Are we sending engineers, or outsourcing designs off-planet

Probably both.

> and sending builders?

Companies might. A lot of the habitats are likely going to be inflatable in nature at first. If you can assemble a tent you'll likely be able to assemble a habitat. Later you can relatively easy make bricks from local materials (almost entirely from the regolith) and build vaults/bunkers under ground and then cover with regolith, pressurize them and they'll eventually seal themselves off thanks to the temperature... moisture from exhalation and what not will seep through any cracks and ultimately freeze You could also go in and paint some sort of sealant. Above ground you'd use a sealant or put an inflatable inside the brick structure. I suggest reading Zubrin's books The Case for Mars and Mars Direct: Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future and his fiction, but scientifically accurate book, How to Live on Mars which is a guide written in the future for those that are on their way to Mars. His fiction book First Landing is also worth reading, it came out before The Martian and involves an entire crew trying to scrape by on Mars.


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Now for getting to Mars for people that can't afford it I wrote the following using Mars Direct as the means of getting there in another sub some time ago it assumes a considerably smaller crew than Musk's baby...


Zubrin said in 2012 that if given to NASA Mars Direct would cost 30-50 billion but a private company could do it for around 5bn. That's for 6 manned flights over 10 years.

Let's pretend a private company would need 20bn per 5 flights. Let's say 1 equipment launch per 4 manned launches. I believe Mars Direct called for 3 people for the early flights but let's pretend 5 per flight.

You get 100 people and a hell of a lot of equipment and habitats to Mars for 500bn over 10-16 years and then BOOM. Declare yourself a nation.

You sell land claims, you license technologies, you tax import but instead of a financial cut you get paid in cargo space or human passage.

You take those human passage spaces taken as tax and use them to hire via employment contracts. You get passage to Mars as well as room, board for working for us for x years and you also earn this many Marsbucks per month. Any mineral deposits, discovers, inventions etc you make while under your initial contract the Martian Free Government gets 10% royalties on gross profits and may use any technologies or processes for free.

You also work with other companies that want to send people to Mars. "You will be granted access to such and such, an xx year land lease for a nominal amount, in exchange you will give 5% of any profits that arise from your operations on Mars whether or not sold on Mars or not".

Inside of 50 years from the first landing of humans you'd essentially have Mars locked down. If any wildcat colonies tried to land, it'd likely be far from your settlement and they wouldn't be an issue for centuries. If armed forces attempted to come and be a problem, if they were from a Terran government that government would likely find themselves screwed politically as soon as news made its way back to earth.