Producing materials from other materials such as extracting oxygen from various compounmds is ultimately an energy problem. Better processes might reduce the ultimate cost by reducing the capital cost or reducing the running cost. For example: we can make hydrocarbons from the atmosphere. It's just uneconomic because of the energy cost.
The energy source itself presents issues. If you need a $50 billion fusion reactor that takes 20 years to build and a thousand people to maintain then that's a problem to bootstrap on Mars.
I personally believe that on Mars, much like on Earth, the future is solar. Solar has a lot of benefits on places like Mars. It's the only form of power generation that reduces electricity directly rather than boiling water and turning a turbine.
So mars still has the two big problems it always has had:
1. It's further from the Sun so solar is less effective. This just increases the cost of energy, ultimately. Of course, there'll occassionally be a months-long dust storm that'll stop you producing any power or just a shorter one that covers all your panels in dust; and
2. What are you going to do with this oxygen? You're going to be living underground because living above ground exposes you to radiation and the Martian surface itself is toxic (eg perchlorates). If you're living underground anyway, why are you living on Mars instead of the Moon?
> The energy source itself presents issues. If you need a $50 billion fusion reactor that takes 20 years to build and a thousand people to maintain then that's a problem to bootstrap on Mars.
ITER is a research facility, not a practical reactor. We have new (relatively) high temperature superconductors that are much better than what was state of the art when ITER was originally designed, meaning we ought to be able to build much smaller and cheaper reactors going forward once the basic technology is worked out. The MIT ARC and SPARC reactors are an example.
> If you're living underground anyway, why are you living on Mars instead of the Moon?
Mars has air that be used to manufacture rocket fuel. It has closer to Earth-standard gravity. The temperature swings are less dramatic. Water is more abundant. It's closer to the asteroid belt, which means it functions as the local gas station and resupply depot for asteroid mining. It has close to an Earth-normal day/night cycle. Basically, it's a much more hospitable environment for humans than the moon. The main thing the moon has going for it is that it's far quicker and easier to get there from Earth.
Producing materials from other materials such as extracting oxygen from various compounmds is ultimately an energy problem. Better processes might reduce the ultimate cost by reducing the capital cost or reducing the running cost. For example: we can make hydrocarbons from the atmosphere. It's just uneconomic because of the energy cost.
The energy source itself presents issues. If you need a $50 billion fusion reactor that takes 20 years to build and a thousand people to maintain then that's a problem to bootstrap on Mars.
I personally believe that on Mars, much like on Earth, the future is solar. Solar has a lot of benefits on places like Mars. It's the only form of power generation that reduces electricity directly rather than boiling water and turning a turbine.
So mars still has the two big problems it always has had:
1. It's further from the Sun so solar is less effective. This just increases the cost of energy, ultimately. Of course, there'll occassionally be a months-long dust storm that'll stop you producing any power or just a shorter one that covers all your panels in dust; and
2. What are you going to do with this oxygen? You're going to be living underground because living above ground exposes you to radiation and the Martian surface itself is toxic (eg perchlorates). If you're living underground anyway, why are you living on Mars instead of the Moon?
Mars just makes zero sense to colonize.