Well, the one argument for settling Mars is that it makes it easier to get at whatever wealth is floating out in the asteroid belt. I don't know how much there is out there, but something in me really likes the idea of like a 5,000 ton of platinum floating out there in space like a lost filling.
yes, but the costs of transporting whatever is out in the asteroid belt back to Earth where it would actually be useful are so prohibitive that it's not really cost-effective at this point to do it, no? i mean, an ounce of platinum wouldn't be worth anywhere near what it costs to go out, find it, retrieve it, and bring it back to Earth.
of course, for the sake of argument, you could kill some of the cost involved by simply not going back to Earth, and instead setting up manufacturing facilities on Mars itself. of course, sending the finished goods back still wouldn't be cost-effective either in all likelihood. i can't imagine any scenario in the near future where it would be cheaper to have something manufactured on Mars out of asteroid materials than it would be to make it, in, say, China. to make any of this at all worthwhile, you'd have to have a local consumer market for the goods.
so, we'd have to be talking about setting up a basically self-sufficient colony, which mines its own resources in the asteroid belt, makes them into things on Mars, and buys most of them itself, if this whole enterprise were to be at all cost-effective, and forgive me for asking, but what would be the point?
i suppose you could say that manufacturing something in China has environmental and human rights costs which would be alleviated, but if we were that serious about enivronmental and human rights issues, we would just reduce overall consumption.
or you were optimistic you could say that offworld colonies could function as a safety valve for overpopulation, but so could a decent health care, birth control, and reproductive education campaign combined with some Third World debt relief at a fraction of the cost, and i just don't think that offworld colonization is even remotely feasible right now on the scale that would be necessary to make a dent, and i don't think it will be soon enough to make a difference.
it all strikes me as useless egotism. very expensive useless egotism at that. though, admittedly, it's not nearly as expensive as our overblown military, but most of the money from both goes to the same people anyway, all of whom are major contributors to the Bush junta. |
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