Yeah by the sounds of it, this group would be sending a ready-made "space station" type set-up to the Martian surface.

However, as the Planetary Resources people pointed out when they started their asteroid mining venture, we've already got entire robot colonies on the bottom of the ocean, where no man has ever tread, automatically excavating and drilling and building things.

If we wanted to build a mine and a factory and an underground habitat on Mars, we've got the technology to build all that without actually sending any humans to do the work, who can be sent once it's all up and running.

Even with robots, this is simply not pratical.

Really? I've been a shift supervisor on a test bed mine in Africa a little over a year ago. Our section of the mine was all robotic, and completely hands off. I haven't left Canada in over 15 years.

You don't need to build 'strong foundations' when you are carving something out of solid bedrock, as it already IS a strong foundation. You will seal the walls so they are air tight, and most likely build a thin-skin building inside with an air buffer so you get a dual layer seal against full leaks, but very little concrete or concrete like material is required.

In all likely hood you would build your colony as a mine. Remove the material you want to use for something else, and a little extra as needed for space, and then expand living areas behind your face. (Or wait till a run in the mine is complete, then expand it into a living area. Depends on exact time tables and whether or not you can afford to wait the years it would take to 'finish' a full mine section to the point where you want to sink a second shaft to use as primary access.

There were no European Carpenters and Miners when Europeans first came to North America. We didn't know of any mines, or houses that would protect us from the elements. Yet they still came here. And honestly when you consider the risks, and the number of people who died on successful missions as compared to those who have died in accidents in space flight, I would argue that crossing the Atlantic in small wooden boats several hundred years ago was far more dangerous than a trip to Mars would be today. It isn't safe, but the risks are a lot better understood and manageable than early settlers faced.

Yet, it's likely that a colony on Mars would be built underground to avoid surface radiation: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22520-mars-is-safe-from-radiation--but-the-trip-there-isnt.html

Merry Christmas everyone! ;)

Sometimes, a song speaks louder than words:

">First-off, what the-
Talk about nostalgia overflow. I was 3 years and 4 months old when I watched this episode of Sesame Street.
You can’t imagine how influential this one song has been in my life. To be quite frank if I were never able to live in space (or on another planet or moon) then my next choice would be under the deep ocean. At least until I was 8. I soon learned of the dangers in living under the ocean, and ironic as it may seem there are more dangers in living under the ocean than in living on Mars.
My main question is though—
My memory allows me to see every nook and cranny of my past, but only when it is mentioned. How in the hell did you remember this off the top of your head?

Make that 200 feet, if you plan for (minor) impacts. 20 feet of rock just evaporate on an impact (for anything much larger than a millimeter of diameter or so). As there's practically no atmosphere, something coming from space will have more or less the same speed and mass upon impact as in space (much different from e.g. on Earth).

Actually only 16.5 feet is necessary.
Asteroidal impacts are actually capable of penetrating deeper, but the chances of those asteroids hitting the base are only 5 times higher than the chances of an asteroid hitting a human on Earth. The calculated risk is that we ignore asteroidal impacts. Feel free to laugh at us if our base does get hit, but you must then also welcome 10 generations of shame upon you, your children, their children, etc., if it does not happen.

Any colony on Mars is likely to be built under ground anyway due to increased surface radiation, and the vastly increased number of impacts from space (due to a lesser atmosphere and minor magnetic field to protect it)... So really you are unlikely to see the moons from under 20+ feet of rock.

The colony will be under 16.5 feet of Mars dust. We are not confined to these spaces as such would be our demise. The Mars suits serve many purposes and seeings the moons is one side-effect of this.

Built by who? Dust devils? Nobody is building nothing underground.

Actually most of it will be under-ground.

I don't see anyone digging underground tunnels or living in caves in Mars.
To build an underground complex, the entire area needs to be excavated with machinery that
can move tons of dirt.

Really?
Because last I checked Mars has a gravity equal to 37.828746177370030581039755351682% that of Earth’s, and an outer layer that is essentially composed of red cigarette smoke.
Digging is actually the easy part. The hard part is avoiding cave-ins, but that won’t be a problem with the supplies that will be sent.

I disagree. The most important resource on Mars will be water

As such the bases will be positioned near the equator (just north). There are basically 2 (maybe 3) hotpots (we will know more accurately once we get there) where water can be exhumed from underground by boiling it from under the surface and collecting it as it evaporates.
Not only has there already proved to be so much water there that we can survive, there is even so much water that some of it can be turned into air for breathing, which is basically our way of getting oxygen.


Honestly as someone with so many opinions I have to wonder why you know so little.
Do try to do more research, won’t you?


L. Spiro