The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization

Robert Zubrin Lockheed Martin Astronautics PO Box 179 Denver, CO 80201, USA (Originally found as badly formatted text at http://www.magick.net/mars/docs/m_econom.txt, a part of Mars Direct Manned Mars Mission Home Page)

The economic viability of colonizing Mars is examined. It is shown, that of all bodies in the solar system other than Earth, Mars is unique in that it has the resources required to support a population of sufficient size to create locally a new branch of human civilization. It is also shown that while Mars may lack any cash material directly exportable to Earth, Mars' orbital elements and other physical parameters gives a unique positional advantage that will allow it to act as a keystone supporting extractive activities in the asteroid belt and elsewhere in the solar system. The potential of relatively near-term types of interplanetary transportation systems is examined, and it is shown that with very modest advances on a historical scale, systems can be put in place that will allow individuals and families to emigrate to Mars at their own discretion. Their motives for doing so will parallel in many ways the historical motives for Europeans and others to come to America, including higher pay rates in a labor-short economy, escape from tradition and oppression, as well as freedom to exercise their drive to create in an untamed and undefined world. Under conditions of such large scale immigration, sale of real-estate will add a significant source of income to the planet's economy. Potential increases in real-estate values after terraforming will provide a sufficient financial incentive to do so. In analogy to frontier America, social conditions on Mars will make it a pressure cooker for invention. These inventions, licensed on Earth, will raise both Terrestrial and Martian living standards and contribute large amounts of income to support the development of the colony.

A frequent objection raised against scenarios for the human settlement and terraforming of Mars is that while such projects may be technologically feasible, there is no possible way that they can be paid for. On the surface, the arguments given supporting this position appear to many to be cogent, in that Mars is distant, difficult to access, possesses a hostile environment and has no apparent resources of economic value to export. These arguments appear to be ironclad, yet it must be pointed out that they were also presented in the past as convincing reasons for the utter impracticality of the European settlement of North America and Australia. It is certainly true that the technological and economic problems facing Mars colonization in the 21st century are vastly different in detail than those that had to be overcome in the colonization of the New World in the 17th century, or Australia in the 19th century. Nevertheless, it is my contention that the argument against the feasibility of Mars colonization is flawed by essentially the same false logic and lack of understanding of real economics that resulted in repeated absurd misevaluations of the value of colonial settlements (as opposed to trading posts, plantations, and other extractive activities) on the part of numerous European government ministries during the 400 years following Columbus.

During the period of their global ascendancy, the Spanish ignored North America; to them it was nothing but a vast amount of worthless wilderness. In 1781, while Cornwallis was being blockaded into submission at Yorktown, the British deployed their fleet into the Caribbean to seize a few high-income sugar plantation islands from the French. In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte sold a third of what is now the United States for 2 million dollars. In 1867 the Czar sold off Alaska for a similar pittance. The existence of Australia was known to Europe for two hundred years before the first colony arrived, and no European power even bothered to claim the continent until 1830. These pieces of short-sighted statecraft, almost incomprehensible in their stupidity, are legendary today. Yet their consistency shows a persistent blind spot among policy making groups as to the true sources of wealth and power. I believe that it is certain that two hundred years from now, the current apathy of governments towards the value of extraterrestrial bodies, and Mars in particular, will be viewed in a similar light.

While I shall return to historical analogies periodically in this paper, the arguments presented here shall not be primarily historical in nature. Rather, they shall be based on the concrete case of Mars itself, its unique characteristics, resources, technological requirements, and its relationships to the other important bodies within our solar system.

In order to understand the economics of Mars colonization it is necessary first to examine briefly the different phases of activity that will be necessary to transform the Red Planet. I define four phases, which I term "exploration," "base building," "settlement," and "terraforming."

The exploration phase of Mars colonization has been going on for some time now with the telescopic and robotic surveys that have been and continue to be made. It will take a quantum leap, however, when actual human expeditions to the planet's surface begin. As I and others have shown in numerous papers1,2,3, if the Martian atmosphere is exploited for the purpose of manufacturing rocket fuel and oxygen, the mass, complexity, and overall logistics requirements of such missions can be reduced to the point where affordable human missions to Mars can be launched with present day technology. Moreover, by using such "Mars Direct" type approaches, human explorers can be on Mars within 10 years of program initiation, with total expenditure not more than 20% of NASA's existing budget.

The purpose of the exploration phase is to resolve the major outstanding scientific questions bearing on the history of Mars as a planet and a possible home for life in the past, to conduct a preliminary survey of the resources of Mars and determine optimum locations for future human bases and settlements, and to establish a modus operandi whereby humans can travel to, reside on, and conduct useful operations over substantial regions of the surface of Mars.

The essence of the base building phase is to conduct agricultural, industrial, chemical, and civil engineering research on Mars as to master an increasing array of techniques required to turn Martian raw materials into useful resources. While properly conducted initial exploration missions will make use of the Martian air to provide fuel and oxygen, in the base building phase this elementary level of local resource utilization will be transcended as the crew of a permanent Mars base learns how to extract native water and grow crops on Mars, to produce ceramics, glasses, metals, plastics, wires, habitats, inflatable structures, solar panels, and all sorts of other useful materials, tools, and structures. While the initial exploration phase can be accomplished with small crews (of about 4 members each) operating out of Spartan base camps spread over bast areas of the Martian surface, the base building phase will require a division of labor entailing a larger number of people (on the order of 50), equipped with a wide variety of equipment and substantial sources of power. In short, the purpose of the base building period is to develop a mastery of those techniques required to produce on Mars the food clothing and shelter required to support a large population on the Red Planet.

The base building phase could begin in earnest about 10 years after the initial human landing on Mars.

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The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization