Geleceğin Mars Ekonomisi

Eli Uzanabileceğimiz Bir Hayal

With more tests of SpaceX’s (SPCX ) Starship ongoing, it seems that the dream of marching on Mars or even colonizing it, is getting more realistic by the day.

Bu aynı zamanda Çin ve NASA’nın kalıcı bir Ay üssü için büyük planları (The Artemis missions) ve AB, Hindistan ve Rusya tarafından yeni uzay istasyonları tartışmalarıyla, hızla büyüyen Çin istasyonunun da üzerine ekleniyor.

Elon Musk’ın yönetim yöntemleri ya da politikaları ne olursa olsun, dünyanın en zengin insanının artık insanları çok gezegenli bir tür haline getirme yaşam hedefine daha da yaklaştığı açık.

Ancak ilk iniş gerçekleştiğinde ve SpaceX ya da önde gelen ülkeler tarafından bilimsel keşifler tamamlandığında, sürdürülebilir Mars kolonileri ekonomik açıdan varlıklarını haklı çıkarmak zorunda kalacak. Bu, söylenmesi kadar uygulanması da kolay değil.

Bu fikir, bilim kurgu içinde derinlemesine incelenmiştir; özellikle 1992’de yayımlanan mükemmel Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. 30 yıl sonra, yeni teknoloji ve Kızıl Gezegen hakkındaki daha fazla bilgiyle bu fikri yeniden gözden geçirelim.

Kaynak: Unsplash

Maliyetler

The need for a self-sustaining Martian economy is because not only the initial setup, but also the continuous imports of goods and people to Mars will be extremely expensive. In the long run, people will want to see it pay for itself.

Ulaşım

The first major cost, that so far kept us from even walking on Mars, is transportation.

A Starship trip to orbit is expected to cost up to $1-5M per orbital launch (depending if you ask Elon Musk or maybe more realistic third parties), each carrying “only” 150 tons. The cost for a Mars trip, which will require still untested refueling in the orbit, might be several times larger.

So this is likely around a $100,000/ton transportation cost or more. For reference, even air freight, the most costly trading method we currently use, costs around $3,000-7,000/ton. Sea freight is as little as $2.5 per ton per 1,000-miles.

So Mars-Earth trade is going to be 100x to 100,000x more expensive.

Simply put, anything imported to Mars will be imported only because it is close to impossible to make locally. Actual trade will, by the sheer force of economics and transportation costs, be rather limited.

This is likely going to look like how the trade of precious items and rare spices was done in the pre-modern world, more than the globalized economy of today.

Hayatta Kalma

The second obvious question about Martian economics is all the extra costs of just living on the red planet. Earth provides us “for free” with breathable air, abundant liquid water, radiation protection, and fertile lands, making growing food and simply staying alive a relatively low-cost and low-tech endeavor.

So the first issue for any colony will be to manage efficiently to procure the very basics locally. This is because transportation costs between Earth and Mars are so astronomical (pun intended) that only people or high-value machinery and parts make sense to carry between the 2 in the long run.

So let’s examine quickly how to cover the basics: food, water, shelter, and heat.

Temel Gereksinimler

Yiyecek

Food is probably not the hardest problem to solve. We know how to grow food in hydroponic or aeroponic conditions. It is more expensive than farming with “free” soil & rain, but nothing dramatic. An airtight dome/greenhouse is also a possibility. In any case, spending a lot of time with green plants or even small farm animals would probably be a psychological boost for the early colonists.

Kaynak: Unsplash

Su

For a long time, this was thought to be a quasi-solvable problem. But we know since 2021 that Mars has a LOT more water than previously believed, including far from the polar regions. So as long as it is not about making entire ocean from scratch, it is unlikely Martian colonies will ever really struggle to access water.

Barınak

Now this can be a more difficult topic. Mars does not have a magnetosphere, so a very thick wall will be needed to give protection from cosmic radiation. It seems the main ideas are now either to do 3D printing of buildings from the local soil or to build underground shelters. You can read more about early experiences regarding radiation and human life on Mars in this dedicated scientific paper.

Kaynak: Autodesk

In my opinion, it is clear Elon Musk has already decided for early colonies to be in tunnels, considering his otherwise odd interest in the Boring Company and its improved, electric-powered tunneling machines. Here too, the average 2-room flat might be a little more expensive to build than on Earth, but might also be much more durable, and well, real estate speculation is yet to pump up the prices of raw land on Mars… (For that matter, electric vehicles are the ONLY possible option for mobility on Mars).

Isı

Mars is a cold world, with an average temperature of -63C (-81F). Most likely, the early colonies will run on nuclear power, with Rolls-Royce microreactors being already tested and to be shipped to the Moon by 2029 (RRU.DE ). The “waste heat” of such reactors will be great to warm the habitats as well.

Kaynak: Rolls Royce

In the longer run, wind power could be another source of energy, with the thin Martian atmosphere often having very strong wind, resulting in a lot of harvestable energy.

Solar energy is going to be more tricky, with the planet receiving only 43% of Earth’s solar radiation. Maybe space-based solar power is an option, as anyway, a Martian economy is also a space-centric economy.

Para Kazanma

In the long run, every society needs to produce as much as it consumes. What it cannot produce itself, it must trade in exchange for products of an equal value.

At first, this balance will be equalized by Earth subsidies, but we can be sure that as soon as humanity walks on Mars, some will grumble this is all a waste of their taxes, and probably even before that.

And the problem is that some items will need to be imported for decades, maybe centuries. For example, microchips, specialized machines, or advanced medicine and scientific instruments.

So how could Martian colonists make enough money to pay for these imports AND the exorbitant costs of transport?

Araştırma

This is something at the edge of “subsidies”, but it is obvious that plenty of fundamental research from Earth-bound research institutes will want to study Mars from its surface. These will probably be the first “jobs” on Mars that are not linked to immediate survival. A little bit like it works for Antarctica today, but with very long or permanent job contracts for these scientists.

Medical research, geology, and astronomy, all will make progress from works conducted on a new planet. And if we ever find a trace of past alien life, this will be an even bigger “industry”. Active lifeforms would be an absolute banger for this sector, with probably every pharmaceutical and chemical company flooding the planet with funding and researchers in the search for new enzymes, chemicals, and medicine.

Turizm

This is probably the first “real” industry Mars could develop, once the details of not only surviving, but living in reasonable comfort on another world have become a matter of well-ordained routine.

We are already seeing this sector slowly turning into an actual industry for orbital flight, with companies like Virgin Galactic (SPCE ) (SPCE) and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin working on the concept.

Ultimately, orbital tourism has only a limited set of experiences to offer, mostly weightlessness and a private view of Earth from orbit.

In comparison, Mars can offer:

Valles Marineris: Güneş Sistemi’ndeki en büyük kanyon, 4,000 km (2,500 mil) uzunluğunda, 200 km (120 mil) genişliğinde ve 7 km (23,000 ft) derinliğinde. 1/3 yerçekimi ile birleşince, bu keşifçiler, dağcılar ve diğer adrenalin tutkunları için bir cennet.

Kaynak: Wikipedia

Olympus Mons: Uykuda olan bir volkan, o kadar büyük ki zirvesi uzaya kadar uzanıyor, toplam yüksekliği 21.9 km (13.6 mil veya 72,000 ft). Fransa ya da Arizona eyaleti kadar büyük.

Kaynak: Wikipedia

It is also surrounded by a massive cliff. At its tallest point, this cliff is 7km high. Many people pay from $30,000 to $200,000 for a Mount Everest expedition. We can imagine a higher price tag will find people ready to pay it in order to climb the tallest mountain in the solar system. One Mars trip costing $1-5M with 1-5 tourists on it seems rather reasonable.

If that was not enough, there is also the Tharsi Montes, 3 giant volcanoes larger than anything on Earth.

Kolay uçuş: Daha önce belirtildiği gibi, gezegenin yerçekimi çok düşük, Dünya’nın %38’i. Bu, zeplinlerden kaykaylara, küçük uçaklardan helikopterlere kadar her türlü uçuş deneyimini mümkün kılabilir. Manzaralı uçuşlar, muhtemelen her lüks Mars macerasının seyahat paketinin bir parçası olacaktır.

Lüks tatil köyleri: Birçok pahalı turizm seçeneği çevresel koşullara çok az bağımlıdır. Örneğin, Dubai ve Las Vegas’taki kruvaziyer gemileri ya da ultra-lüks tatil köyleri, işlevsel olarak Mars kolonisinden çok farklı olmayan, kendi kendine yeten şehirlerdir. Benzersiz konum, yerçekimi, kolay keşif/yürüyüş imkanı ve deneyimin eşsizliği, Mars’taki bazı yerleri yeni Dubai/St-Tropez/Las Vegas/Macao gibi kılabilir.

Gösteriş Hakları ve Ayrıcalık

Let’s be honest, the main feature of space tourism in general, and a hypothetical Mars tourism industry, is its uniqueness. This is something that sets you apart from the common mortals, and the richer people are, the more such status symbols are prized.

We can easily imagine Mars trips being sold in auctions, with limited space available. As well as corporate sponsorship selling limited spots as “supporter of humankind expansion” being a major revenue source for a Martian colony.

For the same reasons, each of the major world powers will want to have “their” colony, and treat it as a matter of national prestige, as well as a nonviolent form of competition with other powers.

In that respect, the strong international tensions might be a major driver in boosting lunar and Martian colonization, with both the US and China, and their respective allies, rushing to “not be left behind” in the new space race.

Over time, declining costs and the loss of novelty will probably change the appeal of this reason for colonization. But it might be vital to turn the fledgling early colonies into fully stable communities and proto-nations.

Nadir Malzemeler

As a completely untapped world, Mars is bound to have easy-to-exploit deposits of materials like gold, diamonds, platinum, etc. Maybe also some unique gemstones and minerals with no equivalent on Earth. These are precious enough to be worth both the effort of mining and bringing them back to Earth.

For example at the current price of $28,000/kg – $28M/ton, platinum can easily cover its transportation costs back to Earth, especially as most rockets are likely to come back mostly empty.

This will not be true for deeper or harder-to-exploit deposits. But at first, this sort of resource exploitation might be a great boost in Martian colonization, the way the gold rush greatly helped a quick integration of California into the USA.

Collector items, like the first Martian rock brought back to Earth could as well command a very high price.

Yüksek Değerli Endüstriler

Any significantly high-value product could be also traded between Mars and Earth. We could potentially imagine items like microchips being worth the transport costs.

We know very little about what manufacturing advantage a 38% of Earth gravity could procure. But we already know that some niche items, like some types of optic fibers, are only possible to build in microgravity.

So it is not completely impossible to rule out that Mars might have some unique potential as a high-tech manufacturing hub. Maybe some unique effect of low gravity will be beneficial for biotechnology as well.

It is also likely that a local culture founded by scientists, engineers, and a population entirely reliant on technology to stay alive might produce quite a few top innovators and scientists. On Earth, the richest places are often like Singapore of the Silicon Valley, resource-poor and benefiting from an educated and productive population.

Uzaktan Çalışma

Mars is too distant from Earth to perform a Zoom call, with a communication lag of 20 minutes on average. But it nevertheless would not hinder the possibility of any work that can be done remotely, like research, writing, design, finance, anything intellectual property related, etc.

If it can be done only with emails, a job probably can be done as easily by a digital nomad on Earth than on Mars.

In the long run, this might be a prime source of employment for the Martian population, as well as of exports, as digital goods & services could be perfectly competitive, not suffering from physical transportation costs. Patents and royalties from R&D effort made on Mars could provide a sustainable source of income for the planete.

Diğer Gelir Kaynakları

While probably never major drivers of the Martian economy, many other activities could be a source of profitable “exports” for the Martian economy.

Düşük Yerçekimi Sporları

Can you imagine playing basketball or baseball with only 38% gravity? Or for that matter mixed martial arts, American football, and rugby? We can easily see some niche (or maybe mainstream) new sports being invented to exploit this unique environment.

Emeklilik ve Rehabilitasyon Evleri

It is possible that low gravity could help handle old age or specific diseases, like cardiovascular issues. If this turns out to be true, some people will definitely want to pay for a one-way ticket and spend their retirement money watching a red sky.

Film Yapımı

This is maybe more going to be true for orbital stations than for Mars, thanks to the advantage of weightlessness. But it is equally likely given that movies about Mars and space are already highly popular today. They might be even more so in a future where colonization is not science fiction anymore.

Yakıtlandırma ve Tamir Merkezi

The human drive for expansion might drive it further, toward the metal riches of the asteroid belt, or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. For that matter, the giant gaseous planets might be a great unlimited source of fuel for nuclear fusion. In that scenario Mars could become a logistical hub for deep-space activities.

Fotoğraf: Planet Volumes üzerinde Unsplash

Terraformasyon

Terraformation is the concept of turning another planet into something similar to Earth (moderate temperature, breathable atmosphere, oceans, active ecosystems. People are very engaged in ecology and the need to protect all forms of life on Earth. The same impulse could see spreading life in a dead world as a moral good, worth donating to.

Even financial speculation could play a part in the push for terraformation, with now “useless” land potentially turned fertile and attractive, both for farming and for real estate.

Kaynak: Deviantart

Mars’ta Yaşam ve Kültür

In the long run, we can expect most Martian colonists to work for other Martians, growing food, producing power & local goods, etc.

The more advanced and complex a technology, the more likely it will have to be imported. So it is not impossible that automation might be a lot less common on Mars than on Earth, with local labor cheaper than anything requiring the import of advanced chips or robotics.

It is also likely that the local production of basic electrics and electronics will have to be quickly developed, as any local supply will be a lot cheaper than imports, even if not produced at the same scale.

A culture of simplicity and low consumption will probably be required to handle the harsh living conditions of the first decades. A strong belief in science and rationality is also likely to dominate the culture, with technology the only thing keeping everyone alive.

One outcome of having to build subterranean or heavily shielded habitats might also be a culture that views the outside as a place to avoid most of the time.

On one hand, the Martian surface could be seen as a place to preserve free of human interference, especially if terraformation becomes successful.

On the other hand, this could encourage ruthless exploitation of the planet’s resources, with no ecosystem risking being damaged, and a mix of domed gardens and massive heavy industry could dot the surface of this new world.

Dolayısıyla, teknolojik-ekolojik bir ütopya ya da siberpunk kitle sanayileşmesi olsun, gelecekteki bir Mars toplumu ve ekonomisi için birçok yol mümkündür. Ancak her durumda, bu, insanlık tarihine Amerika kıtasının keşfi ve kolonizasyonu kadar etkili bir rol oynayacaktır.