Consider the following tech tree.

  • The rocket can double as a living habitat, if it manages to land in one piece. Martian dirt could be used to re-inforce the walls to protect against radiation.

  • Solar energy with a battery or nuclear could serve as a power source.

  • Water can be extracted from regolith (martian rock) by baking the regolith in a furnace, the water evaporates and can the be re-condensed.

  • Oxygen can be produced through the electrolysis of water. One kilogram of water produces approximately 880 g of O2, which is roughly enough for a day per person.

  • Methane can be produced through the Sabatier process, which takes as input H2 and CO2, and can be used as a rocket fuel and to make bioplastics out of it.

  • Plants are the tricky part. I will create a further post later in the future to give more detailed information about this. The basic gist is that you can create greenhouses if you have the basic ingredients (mostly water).

  • gandalf_der_12teOPM
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    6 months ago

    food production on mars is tricky. i’m actively investigating into it already. it’s just such a complicated field that it takes me a while to actually make up reasonable claims.

    what i’ve found so far is the following: if martian settlers get good support from earth, martial settlers could be fed daily, although it would be expensive. transporting a kg of mass to mars today could cost approximately $30K (with the technology we have today), and settlers need at least 1/2 kg of food per day. That makes for costs of about $5M per person per year (earth year), and that’s just food. so a better approach would be desired. i’m actively investigating food production and i will definitely make a series of posts about this topic in the future, please be patient. thank you :P