Profit from Mars? - discussion

[Marco2001]

Keeping in mind that it's the future year 2060 (or something like that), what do you think about those 3 questions?
1) How do you think man will make profit out of mars?
2) What currency will mars colony use? Dolars? Yens? Euro? Rosource-Units? Something different?
3) Is there any other reason beyond profit that will urge humans to make a pemanent colony there?

[Mecanico]

If humanity will ever decide to move to Mars, first thing will be profits. There is only one reason except cash, that can force us to go there - some kind of disaster, which make Earth unsuitable for us any longer (hope not earlier then my death;]).
But, returning to the point. If there will be international (I hope) colony, there will be no $,¥,€. Colonists will use something new. In "Red Mars" colonists are using joules, unite of energy, most universal unite in entire Space. Of course, there will be barter trade too, especially before creating, let's we call it, "Bank of Mars"

[profit004]

Profit from Mars?
Some have speculated I am from there....

[Marco2001]

The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization - http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html

In my opinion, as a person who wrights a book that has action on Mars and a (Astro)Biologist, I think that the MAIN economical profit will be from discovering new martian life forms.

Why? Look at this:

Antybiotics
DNA-seqencing
New medicine - drug production
Pharmacogenomics
Gene therapy
Genetic testing: techniques in molecular biology detect genetic diseases.
GMO
Biofuels
Biodegradable plastics
Production of food like milk, bread and beer
Bioleaching (mining using bacteria)
Recycling
Waste cleaning and in-situ terrain cleaning (bioremediation)
Biological weapons
New energy sources and equipement of use - OLED diode, organic solar panels, new polimers, flat-sceens, bioluminescence materials etc..
...even more...

Those are the discoveries of biotechnology. Together those industries area's make THE BIGGEST INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD with something about 47 trylion dollars.
Not mining, not production of cars/computers, not ore refining or software production but BIOTECHNOLOGY.

That is so much money that it spins the world around, and since the colonisation of mars will need money...it will come from biotech corporations.

But why Mars?
Look closely at those examples...do you find anything common?
If you answered: "Each and every one of them was developed after a discovery of a new bacteria, plant or fungai" then you are correct.

For instance: Peniciline is produced by a fungai Pennicilium, PCR was created when Thermus aquaticus and Pyrococcus furiosis were discovered in 80 deg. C inside Yellowstone geysers, a specific strain of E.coli was discovered that could transfer naturaly a genetic material from one species to another - thus creating an era of GMO,   
The discovery of Bacillus thuringiensis made possible to make ecological Pesticides.
Even up to 90% of medicine now are natural-based (not sythesices artifically) and are from plants and fungai.
The Deinococcus radiodurans was discovered in ham-cans that was sterylized with radiation of 20.000 Greys (!!!) that could have killed a man in seconds (if not sooner), and opened our yes to the ways of biological radiation-protection and gene rapair (longer life and beating cancer!).
Thats just for starters!

As you can see...bioindustry is mostly interested in discovering new bacterias, fungai, plants and animal microorganism.
The fact is - the more exotic environment that are found at the better! (becouse they metabolic-paths must be something we have never seen before, and that meens new inventions)

Does anyone remember why does the Wayland-Yutani corporation in "Alien 4" tryed to clone the alien?
For new medicine, bioweapons, new bio-polimers for industry. They realized that Aliens was so "alien" to what we know that the biotechnology discoveries would be marvelous.

If there is a life besides Earth anywhere in the solar system...it would propably be on Mars or Europa.
In creating MCO we have the luxary of "licencia poetica" which means, we can determine if life exists on mars or not.
As far as I know - life is already implemented by Hyper to the game.
That means that the problem is solved! We have life on mars so we have a reason and possibility to find new life forms for the biotechnology industry.
Those corporations would pay some SERIOUS MONEY to get they'r hands on even one of them.

As for the currency - I have some objections in using dollars, yens and eyro alone and using all of them is propably out of the question.
In 90' game "Star Control", you delivered Earth suplies of materials from other planets, and in exchange, you gained "Resource Units" (RU).

[profit004]

Someday we will trade in energy... But for now I think RU's would probably be the best.  I actually designed a monetary system for a game I am making that is much more interesting, but its mine =)


Umm I did post something about it here a long time ago.. Will see if I cant dig  it up.


*edit found it*

a game of yours? lol sounds like yer shopping for ideas..

LOL!

I do appropriate a lot of ideas, but it is in the more or less finalized stage at this point just needs me to get all the systems in my head down on it...  It's a 400 page design document currently and the money system is only a long paragraph long but it is complete...  (Has more words last count than the first harry potter novel if that tells you of the size and of the ludicrous amounts of typing I have done)

But anyhow, I decided that credits were kinda generic, so I created some coins based on some major stellar bodies *Since the game revolves around lunar colonists* and I kinda like the system.

 If for some reason you wanted to use a similar system in this game...

 On mars though with a frontier economy I would recommend they have a bit more practical coins maybe named after metals or refined elements, or colony parts, or terrain features unique to mars.  Maybe... Dusts worth 1 credit.. Craters worth 10... Boulders worth 100 or 500.... Hills worth 1,000 or maybe 10,000 credits... and maybe something like Olympus Mons coins worth 100,000 since all the action will take place on mars...  Or maybe something like Carbon Dioxides, Methanes, O2's, and Water coins.   

Not saying the game needs that kinda a system, It was just kinda necessary for mine because of it's nature large financial transactions will be taking place next to small ones and I wanted to make both convenient and not confusing while giving players a sense of ownership for their virtual property.  I don't see the need for development time to be used in this game for the same kind of system.    Just pick something that every player will relate to as valuable in the colony maybe Watts or Milliliters of H2O or a Martian, or a Space Travel credit, and I am sure it would be a fine currency.

[thedubman]

I am guessing but if there was real profit to be made from mars humans would trying for it now- when the tech is available I guess then it willbe viable to go (its sad to say but I reckon that would be the only real push to go to mars and settle a colony, opposed to doing it for science and/or the challenge)- Am I correct in saying that USA govt dropped revisting the moon (which I think was in 5-10 years) becouse it was to expensive? 10 billion I think- now thats a lot of money but when you consider they spent more on developing and testing a missle system that they didnt use its a shame)..

With MCO I would expect a create/trade system to be used becouse it would give players a goal to achive once they have settled.. it could work like in other games where once you have gathered enougth recouces it allows for upgrades and new equipment/buildings and the like.. then again achiving scientific goals could also allow for such 'upgrades'.

[Marco2001]

What kind of resources (like gold, uranium, water etc.) would you guys whink would be the most precious to get from Mars and why?
Additional question: would you refine those resources at the mars base and send the processed material to Earth, or send the raw Ore?

[profit004]

None of those even in 2060 will be precious enough to bother sending to earth.  even in fully processed form.

.. Maybe *just maybe* iridium made inside transmutation reactors would be worth the cost to ship to earth. Especially if a major use for it was found and the NIMBY people joined forces and kept all reactors of that type off of earth.

[thedubman]

None of those even in 2060 will be precious enough to bother sending to earth.  even in fully processed form.

.. Maybe *just maybe* iridium made inside transmutation reactors would be worth the cost to ship to earth. Especially if a major use for it was found and the NIMBY people joined forces and kept all reactors of that type off of earth.

Agree, If civilizaion goes in the right direction, it would be hoped ythat many of the resouces we use today would be replaced with alternative and/or synthetic materials...

But.....  For MCO, what would be better? to have a pre-built colony which players log in and help run and explore etc? or a colony where mining/resource gathering missions as well as running the colony and exploring etc is used?

With most games progression, be it getting to next level or unlocking an area etc is basically the main goal of the game..
Without progression, or an indication of advancement games would be pretty dull..

For players to belive that they are advancing or getting better once they know whats going on and the colony is running ok, I would suggest would be getting resouces.

The resouces could be water, o2, power, or materials mined and/or manufactured items..I will put My gaming head on now! To make the sim 'fun' as well as realistic, these resouces could be stockpiled and 'sold' to an "EarthCorp" for upgrades, additonal equipment and fun things like flags and decorations etc..

It would not be like AOE where you need 10 logs, 20 stones, 5 iron to build a bakery whatever, but would be major exchanges of resouces, say once a month or quarter etc.

It has been disscused before about who would choose what to buy etc,.. but if it was kept simple (ish) ie get "earthcorp" to  shuttle in (Or de-orbit a lander) drop in 2 extra rovers, upgraded circiut boards for seperators, spare tools etc which would be selected off a list or by selecting upgrade option to a specfic unit (like fishtanks)... Once selected, a total of resouces required (some be "worth" more than others) is displayed and amounts in the storage area indicating amounts left to aquire..

This would be different to personnel wealth, but saying that this has all been discussed before in great detail!

yes it is game like, but TBH MCO is a game. And you need goals in a game.

[Marco2001]

An idea here - what if one of the profit would be from simple exploration of HIS (High-Interest Sites)?

How would I see it?
Earth Science and commerce industry would pay for you visiting that sites.

What sites exactly?
Mountains, canyons, the center of an evaporated-lakes, vulcanos, thermal-vents sites, landslides, Ice-mountains (they should be still there), glaciers, caves, meteorite-sites, large-undergtound lakes, lander sites, mars probe-sites, craters, etc..

How would you gain the money?
You  would simply pick-up a monument (like a flag of all nations of earth) and place it at the HIS.
So - if you would want to place it on the mountain, you would need to climb on it, and place it near the top (preferrably - at the highest point possible).
The opposite is with canyons - as low as possible.
Craters, vulcanos, etc. - at the centers of them.
For each site you wisit and drop the monument there you would gain instanlty money.
(P.S. If there's a way, than players who visited the site, might be somehow mentioned on the monument or from congratulations message from earth)



Obviously - this task wouldn't be easy. Some sites would be close but some would be very far away, and would need a ton of planing by the players. If for instance, they would want to go unprepared, they would end-up with no fuel/oxygen/power/food or water midway. This needs to be coordinated and done precisely.

P.S.2
As for the resources, I think "Thorium" would be an expensive resource that could be found on Mars and Earth would send for it.
It will be a very important resource in the future that will provide power for thorium-based nuclear power (which is like 10 times cheaper than Uranium-based).

[profit004]

Actually I do not see thorium becoming much more expensive, I see it becoming less expensive,  I believe massive thorium deposits remain untapped in many places because there is little commercial use for it at the moment.

Current thorium reserves in tons.   Each Ton of thorium is enough to create the energy of 3,500,000 tons of coal.

Country    RAR Th (tonnes)    EAR Th (tonnes)
Brazil    606,000    700,000
Turkey    380,000    500,000
India    319,000    —
United States    137,000    295,000
Norway    132,000    132,000
Greenland    54,000    32,000
Canada    45,000    128,000
Australia    19,000    —
South Africa    18,000    —
Egypt    15,000    309,000
Other Countries    505,000    —
World Total    2,230,000    2,130,000


"Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week.

Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It’s the Big One," said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering.

"Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free. You don’t have to deal with uranium cartels," he said.

Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a radioactive by-product if they try to dig up rare earth metals. The US and Australia are full of the stuff. So are the granite rocks of Cornwall. You do not need much: all is potentially usable as fuel, compared to just 0.7pc for uranium. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html

[thedubman]

Thorium, to me seems like a perfect example of resouce gathering for 'money' or goods..

would it seem crazy to be able to fuel up some landers (like we did in the demo) but on a larger scale so we can launch the material in orbit (got to be semi realistic so say 3-5 tonnes of refined thorium).

You could say the Cargo Landers are (say 3-4) at a launch site, where upon fuelling and loading- they are fired up on a pre-programmed trajectory for low  altitute orbit. For the stake of a story, landers are docked with a orbiting station, unloaded and re-packed with items if requested then dropped to de-orbit and reland automatically to the site... Materials stored in station are packed on some sort of transport and fired back to earth... yes I know semi-unrealistic but it makes a sensible backstory..

[aozeba]

Honestly, it seems to me highly unlikely that martian colonies will be profitable to Earth in any direct, shipping resources fashion. I see the missions and colonies being created on the basis of science and national pride. The first country to set foot on mars will be in the history books forever as the pinnacle of civilization at the time when it happens.

Even if its an international effort (which seems likely) the countries involved will place a great deal of national pride in it.

Of course there is the possibility of a private contractor being the first to do it, but the most likely funder of that contractor would be a national government.

Money as we know it here on earth would be rather meaningless on mars, at least until a highly developed civilization exists on the planet. Imagine if somebody decided to "wire" $3,000,000 to you while you were on Mars. Sure, you're now a millionaire, but who cares? You've got machinery to maintain and food to grow.

Far more valuable at first are going to be materials that allow the colonies to survive and thrive, such as Nitrogen and Potassium (for fertilizer), metals for machinery repair and construction material, and machines that can produce useful materials or parts. That will be the local currency, not money.

As with other space programs, the main way that Earth will benefit will be advances in science and technology in very useful fields such as ecosystem design, solar panels, highly efficient insulation, 3 dimensional object printing, water and air filtration, radiation shielding, genetic engineering, and all of the other technologies that will be necessary to sustain life on mars. Whoever owns the patents on such advances stands to make a great deal of money on earth, and these may serve as a funding mechanism for future missions.

[pad69]

Because it is there and we must do it!

[thedubman]

Because it is there and we must do it!

Could not of put it better,...


MCO, to give entertainment should give you goals like that, as long as the experience is realistic and fun- we can use whatever explanation for why and how... I want to be looking at My wrist PC and flicking through 'missions open' list or responding to an alert.